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The Forbes 400 is mostly entrepreneurs but the "Forbes 40,000" is mostly financiers, only a small fraction of whom create net positive value.
by qq66 16y ago
The Forbes 400 is mostly entrepreneurs but the "Forbes 40,000" is mostly financiers, only a small fraction of whom create net positive value.
- pg 16y agoI don't see any reason to assume the distribution of outcomes for financiers is flatter than that for entrepreneurs. Is there something about finance that should make that so?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- onan_barbarian 16y agoThe Forbes 400 contains a mix of entrepreneurs and inherited wealth, and tends to describe people as self-made if there is _any_ way of justifying that at all. For example, you typically might raise an eyebrow at the description of Philip Anschutz as 'self-made'... from Anschutz's wikipedia page: "Anschutz bought out his father's drilling company in 1961" (age 22) ... as you do. Paging down the list shows a quite interesting mix of self-made to lesser or greater extents, but a lot of Waltons and Rockerfellers... still. More broadly, the emphasis on the ultra-rich isn't enormously illuminating either way, although it's worth noting that a lot of the 'entirely self-made' ultra-rich come from extremely comfortable upper-middle-class backgrounds, most obviously Bill Gates. I would be suprised to hear any evidence supporting your "Forbes 40,000" line - got any, or are you just making it up?
- bokonist 16y agoSource?
- qq66 16y agoNo source since the "Forbes 40,000" doesn't exist but I can assure you that it's much more common to make $100m on Wall Street than in entrepreneurship. My direct manager when I interned at Lehman Brothers had probably socked away $50m himself.