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They do talk about that. Elon Musk cleaned out manure tanks for a while in Canada if I'm not mistaking. There are some interviews where he talks about this (an

They do talk about that. Elon Musk cleaned out manure tanks for a while in Canada if I'm not mistaking. There are some interviews where he talks about this (and showering at the gym across the street and sleeping under a desk and having no money) in quite some detail.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
captainlol 4y ago
[flagged]
- vidarh 4y ago
  There are lots of people from wealthy backgrounds who'll slum it for a while. There's not usually a reason to doubt that. The thing to keep in mind is that voluntary/temporary poverty is very different from poverty you can't get out of with an embarrassing phone call. I lived in relative poverty for a while when doing my first business, and while my parents were not particularly wealthy, knowing they provided an escape hatch took a lot of pressure off (living somewhere with a highly functional welfare system provided additional comfort). Things could have crashed and burned at any time, and I'd likely have been better off financially.
michaelmrose 4y ago
His family was rich he is as self made as Trump.
Swenrekcah 4y ago
Doesn’t he come from a South-African diamond family or something?
- lovecg 4y ago
  If Wikipedia or Snopes are to be believed on the matter (and I really don’t know anymore), this is way overblown. Mines (emerald, not diamond btw) are cheaper than you think. If my dad buys half of a tiny mine in his retirement I’ll start walking around claiming I’m from a mine owning family! The story of how he even got to own the mine sounds pretty wild: “According to the story, in the mid-1980s, Errol and a copilot landed their plane near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia, where "a group of Italians" offered them 80,000 pounds in British currency in order to buy the plane. Standing with the cash in his hand, Errol was made another offer he couldn't refuse: Would he like to buy half an emerald mine for half of his new riches? "I said, 'Oh, all right'. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years."” It proceeds to say he made about $400000 from the mine in total - hardly a billionaire villain level money. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-mine/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-min... I think the null hypothesis that Musk got lucky in the dotcom era is pretty reasonable, lots of people did. I don’t get all the conspiracy theories.
  - dorkwood 4y ago
    > It proceeds to say he made about $400000 from the mine in total - hardly a billionaire villain level money. Just to clarify for anyone else wondering, that’s 400,000USD inflation adjusted for 2021. Converted to South African rand, it’s about 7.2 million. To put that in context, the average home price in South Africa is about a million rand. So at most they would have been able to buy 7 properties. If they bought in an expensive area, they likely would have only been able to afford 4 or 5.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Converted to South African rand, it’s about 7.2 million. > To put that in context, the average home price in South Africa is about a million rand. So at most they would have been able to buy 7 properties That’s... not how averages work.
      - dorkwood 4y ago
        If a house costs a million rand, and you have 7 million, then you can buy 7 of them, right? What am I missing?
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        If an average house costs a million rand, and you have 7 million rand, 7 properties is not the maximum you could buy. (If the minimum price was a million rand, then 7 would be the maximum.)
        dorkwood 4y ago
        Oh, I didn’t realise I wrote “at most”. You’re right, that was incorrect.
logisticpeach 4y ago
He also had substantially wealthy parents if I'm not mistaken. Same with Gates and others. This is the ultimate safety net. It's easier to take risks when you have an out when it all goes really wrong. Doubt he'd still be cleaning manure today if he hadn't had a success...
- loudandskittish 4y ago
  I'm reminded of the song Common People by Pulp: "But still you'll never get it right/'Cause when you're laying in bed at night/Watching roaches climb the wall/If you called your dad he could stop it all."
  - the-smug-one 4y ago
    The album in general holds up well, good stuff.
  - mock-possum 4y ago
    This was basically Memnoch The Devil's [0] argument against the legitimacy of Jesus Christ's sacrifice - it didn't count, because he did it with full knowledge of his own immortality. Through crucifixion he suffered and died, but he never faced the existential dread that plagues humankind, and therefore giving up his own life was an inauthentic act. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memnoch_the_Devil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memnoch_the_Devil
bilqis 4y ago
He comes from emerald wealth in South Africa for christ sake. Maybe he cleaned manure, but not out of dire need
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Given that the mine was worth 40,000 pounds and stopped producing in 1989 it wasn't exactly a great source of wealth.
  - monocasa 4y ago
    It's more that he came from such wealth that his family could acquire a nontrivial share in an emerald mine on what amounted to a whim. > Standing with the cash in his hand, Errol was made another offer he couldn't refuse: Would he like to buy half an emerald mine for half of his new riches? > "I said, 'Oh, all right'. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years." https://www.news24.com/news24/bi-archive/how-elon-musks-family-came-to-own-an-emerald-mine-2018-2 https://www.news24.com/news24/bi-archive/how-elon-musks-fami...
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      Anybody who considers 80,000 pounds to be riches is not very wealthy.
      - monocasa 4y ago
        It's 80,000 pounds dropped on a whim, not that they simply had 80k total. That is wealthy.
        bryanlarsen 4y ago
        It's not on a whim, it's how Errol lived his entire life. Chasing "Get Rich Quick" schemes is not typically a sign of wealth.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

captainlol 4y ago

[flagged]

vidarh 4y ago
There are lots of people from wealthy backgrounds who'll slum it for a while. There's not usually a reason to doubt that. The thing to keep in mind is that voluntary/temporary poverty is very different from poverty you can't get out of with an embarrassing phone call. I lived in relative poverty for a while when doing my first business, and while my parents were not particularly wealthy, knowing they provided an escape hatch took a lot of pressure off (living somewhere with a highly functional welfare system provided additional comfort). Things could have crashed and burned at any time, and I'd likely have been better off financially.

michaelmrose 4y ago

His family was rich he is as self made as Trump.

Swenrekcah 4y ago

Doesn’t he come from a South-African diamond family or something?

lovecg 4y ago
If Wikipedia or Snopes are to be believed on the matter (and I really don’t know anymore), this is way overblown. Mines (emerald, not diamond btw) are cheaper than you think. If my dad buys half of a tiny mine in his retirement I’ll start walking around claiming I’m from a mine owning family! The story of how he even got to own the mine sounds pretty wild: “According to the story, in the mid-1980s, Errol and a copilot landed their plane near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia, where "a group of Italians" offered them 80,000 pounds in British currency in order to buy the plane. Standing with the cash in his hand, Errol was made another offer he couldn't refuse: Would he like to buy half an emerald mine for half of his new riches? "I said, 'Oh, all right'. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years."” It proceeds to say he made about $400000 from the mine in total - hardly a billionaire villain level money. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-mine/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-min... I think the null hypothesis that Musk got lucky in the dotcom era is pretty reasonable, lots of people did. I don’t get all the conspiracy theories.
- dorkwood 4y ago
  > It proceeds to say he made about $400000 from the mine in total - hardly a billionaire villain level money. Just to clarify for anyone else wondering, that’s 400,000USD inflation adjusted for 2021. Converted to South African rand, it’s about 7.2 million. To put that in context, the average home price in South Africa is about a million rand. So at most they would have been able to buy 7 properties. If they bought in an expensive area, they likely would have only been able to afford 4 or 5.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Converted to South African rand, it’s about 7.2 million. > To put that in context, the average home price in South Africa is about a million rand. So at most they would have been able to buy 7 properties That’s... not how averages work.
    - dorkwood 4y ago
      If a house costs a million rand, and you have 7 million, then you can buy 7 of them, right? What am I missing?
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        If an average house costs a million rand, and you have 7 million rand, 7 properties is not the maximum you could buy. (If the minimum price was a million rand, then 7 would be the maximum.)
        dorkwood 4y ago
        Oh, I didn’t realise I wrote “at most”. You’re right, that was incorrect.

logisticpeach 4y ago

He also had substantially wealthy parents if I'm not mistaken. Same with Gates and others. This is the ultimate safety net. It's easier to take risks when you have an out when it all goes really wrong. Doubt he'd still be cleaning manure today if he hadn't had a success...

loudandskittish 4y ago
I'm reminded of the song Common People by Pulp: "But still you'll never get it right/'Cause when you're laying in bed at night/Watching roaches climb the wall/If you called your dad he could stop it all."
- the-smug-one 4y ago
  The album in general holds up well, good stuff.
- mock-possum 4y ago
  This was basically Memnoch The Devil's [0] argument against the legitimacy of Jesus Christ's sacrifice - it didn't count, because he did it with full knowledge of his own immortality. Through crucifixion he suffered and died, but he never faced the existential dread that plagues humankind, and therefore giving up his own life was an inauthentic act. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memnoch_the_Devil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memnoch_the_Devil

bilqis 4y ago

He comes from emerald wealth in South Africa for christ sake. Maybe he cleaned manure, but not out of dire need

bryanlarsen 4y ago
Given that the mine was worth 40,000 pounds and stopped producing in 1989 it wasn't exactly a great source of wealth.
- monocasa 4y ago
  It's more that he came from such wealth that his family could acquire a nontrivial share in an emerald mine on what amounted to a whim. > Standing with the cash in his hand, Errol was made another offer he couldn't refuse: Would he like to buy half an emerald mine for half of his new riches? > "I said, 'Oh, all right'. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years." https://www.news24.com/news24/bi-archive/how-elon-musks-family-came-to-own-an-emerald-mine-2018-2 https://www.news24.com/news24/bi-archive/how-elon-musks-fami...
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Anybody who considers 80,000 pounds to be riches is not very wealthy.
    - monocasa 4y ago
      It's 80,000 pounds dropped on a whim, not that they simply had 80k total. That is wealthy.
      - bryanlarsen 4y ago
        It's not on a whim, it's how Errol lived his entire life. Chasing "Get Rich Quick" schemes is not typically a sign of wealth.