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Millionaires don’t have enough money. Branson is a billionaire. Most Millionaires do all kinds of interesting things, it’s just that those things are in the sa

Millionaires don’t have enough money. Branson is a billionaire. Most Millionaires do all kinds of interesting things, it’s just that those things are in the same realm that ordinary people can. Eg they go to Aspen and ski, which lots of non-millionaires do, but unlike the plebes they stay in a super high-end hotel or condo, or just buy a vacation home there if they visit often enough. Being a millionaire, < 10M net worth, is not actually that rare or exceptional.

nine_k 5y ago
Bringing SpaceX to the first spaceflight only took about $100M, firmly in the "millionaire" range. Falcon-1 was not capable of carrying a human to space though.
- spacedcowboy 5y ago
  That's 100x what you need to be a millionaire. I'm a millionaire, a few times over in fact, but there's no way I'm launching a space plane.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Still $100M is a literal order of magnitude away from a billionaire status, mentioned upthread. In any case, a millionaire can technically have wealth spanning 3 orders of magnitude; no way this could be a homogeneous category regarding what's a "millionaire" is capable of financially.
    - Johnny555 5y ago
      Pretty much the only person who can throw $100M at a "fun" project that may never amount to anything more than a hobby is someone at the billionaire level. Few hundred millionaires are passionate enough about something to spend their entire fortune on it.
  - lifty 5y ago
    Are you doing anything else interesting? Genuine question out of curiosity.
  - Gravityloss 5y ago
    You could probably get to single passenger VTVL flights in Armadillo / XCOR style with a few million and starting from scratch.
cheschire 5y ago
Billionaires’ doors open like this \o/ and not like this —o—
- brianwawok 5y ago
  Three comma club
jfengel 5y ago
8% of American adults, according to another article on HN today. Though it didn't break that down further by age. I suspect a good number of those are retirees with significant savings (and paid-off real estate) to be spent down over the next few decades.

nine_k 5y ago

Bringing SpaceX to the first spaceflight only took about $100M, firmly in the "millionaire" range. Falcon-1 was not capable of carrying a human to space though.

spacedcowboy 5y ago
That's 100x what you need to be a millionaire. I'm a millionaire, a few times over in fact, but there's no way I'm launching a space plane.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Still $100M is a literal order of magnitude away from a billionaire status, mentioned upthread. In any case, a millionaire can technically have wealth spanning 3 orders of magnitude; no way this could be a homogeneous category regarding what's a "millionaire" is capable of financially.
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    Pretty much the only person who can throw $100M at a "fun" project that may never amount to anything more than a hobby is someone at the billionaire level. Few hundred millionaires are passionate enough about something to spend their entire fortune on it.
- lifty 5y ago
  Are you doing anything else interesting? Genuine question out of curiosity.
- Gravityloss 5y ago
  You could probably get to single passenger VTVL flights in Armadillo / XCOR style with a few million and starting from scratch.

cheschire 5y ago

Billionaires’ doors open like this \o/ and not like this —o—

brianwawok 5y ago
Three comma club

jfengel 5y ago

8% of American adults, according to another article on HN today. Though it didn't break that down further by age. I suspect a good number of those are retirees with significant savings (and paid-off real estate) to be spent down over the next few decades.