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> If you look at the lists of the richest people that occasionally get published in the press, nearly all of them did it by starting their own companies. Actaa

by gumby 3y ago

> If you look at the lists of the richest people that occasionally get published in the press, nearly all of them did it by starting their own companies. Actaally if you look at those lists, the largest number made it by choosing their parents correctly.

petesergeant 3y ago
Certainly a few, but a quick scan of lists makes it look more like 25% inherited in the top 20 or so
- namdnay 3y ago
  I think it depends where you set the limit between “self made” and “inherited”. I don’t think it’s black or white Would Gates have made it if Mum wasn’t on the board of IBM? Would Bezos have made it without 200k from mum&dad ?
  - importantbrian 3y ago
    The real problem with those lists is that they only include people whose wealth is known and can be reasonably valued based on public sources. It's often not easy to trace the net worth of old-money families. It also means you won't find people from countries with very low transparency or dictators on the list. For example, you won't find Putin or any of the Saudi royals on the Forbes list even though they are among the wealthiest people in the world. Perhaps even competing for #1 depending on what estimate of their wealth you find to be the most reliable. It's impossible to draw any firm conclusions from those lists because they aren't representative samples of wealthy people. They're a sample of wealthy people with public assets, and of course that's going to skew heavily towards people who founded large publically traded companies who live in countries with high degrees of financial transparency.
    - secstate 3y ago
      Which makes one feel even shittier when you realize that even with that skewing, the list STILL contains a lot of inherited-wealth or comfortable-highly-educated-wealth people.
  - Aunche 3y ago
    > Would Bezos have made it without 200k from mum&dad ? Bezos was already the youngest Senior Vice President at DE Shaw before he started Amazon, so he wouldn't have any problem finding other investors. His mom had Bezos as a teenager, and his adoptive dad was a young Cuban refugee. His grandfather was rich though.
  - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
    I would consider someone who has made >1000x what they were given as self made without any doubt. Yes $200k or being in IBM's board or being US citizen or being able to afford Stanford is not a small thing for many, but saying that those were the biggest determining factor in making them richest is just being cynic on their progress.
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    > I think it depends where you set the limit between “self made” and “inherited”. I don’t think it’s black or white That’s a fair point to make in the abstract, but it’s absolutely, breath-takingly extraordinary to turn moderately well-off parents into a top-twenty global wealth position. I went to high school and university with many people considerably more privileged than either of those, and the challenge is generally in not mismanaging the assets too poorly so there’s enough to pass on to the next generation.
- martinohansen 3y ago
  > […] you need to do well in your classes to get into a good university. Isn’t this also mostly inherited: do most get into the good universities because of their grades or their connections? Can most get good grades without an “inherited” support system?
- sarimkx 3y ago
  Inherited wealth did see an increase in 2023 in the UBS Wealth Report. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-20231130-the-great-wealth-transfer.html https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-2023... https://fortune.com/europe/2023/11/30/billionaire-heirs-overtook-self-made-ones-ubs-taxes-and-philanthropy/ https://fortune.com/europe/2023/11/30/billionaire-heirs-over...
- paulpauper 3y ago
  Except for Waltons or the occasional Saudi, there is much more tech wealth compared to inherited wealth.
LarsDu88 3y ago
Parents who started companies. Lookin' at you Walton kids!
wilshiredetroit 3y ago
"choosing their parents correctly" - yes.. having great parents doing their best is probably one of the main indicators of success. (mileage definitely varies) A child can learn a lot from their parents.. things like prudence, patience, work ethic.. a lot of folks think its about "inheritance". imho
gist 3y ago
> If you look at the lists of the richest people that occasionally get published in the press, nearly all of them did it by starting their own companies. And actually it's a stupid point to begin with; making a point by choosing the absolute top percentage as if there is nothing other than 'really' rich (forget whether that is even a good thing I'd argue it's not a plus to have that much money and notoriety). There is of course 'lots of money' or 'comfortable'. Irony also that Paul is probably not on that list but even if he was it's not because he 'built a google' but rather he decided to be an investor and incubator spreading bets over many potential winners. Also ironic that Paul had decided rather than making more money he'd rather spend time with his family.
- paulpauper 3y ago
  I am sure he has at least a billion. That is really rich
- feedforward 3y ago
  Of course you're correct, but forget about that - two thirds of the team that started Viaweb and then Y-Combinator crashed, according to then contemporary reports, 10% of the machines on the Internet for the fun of vandalism or a prank or whatever. The one who was charged did no jail time - Graham wasn't even charged. He then goes on to exploit young techies to put himself in a very prime position in the relations of production. Nowadays he tweets minimally veiled racist tweets about the supposed biological superiority of his brain compared to the rest of us, especially other races. Talk about privilege.
  - user_7832 3y ago
    > Nowadays he tweets minimally veiled racist tweets about the supposed biological superiority of his brain compared to the rest of us, especially other races. I’m curious, what are you referring to?
hintymad 3y ago
I guess luck plays a big role in one's success. That said, pg's points still hold, as he is telling us how to maximize our chance of success despite of what we are born with.
- paulpauper 3y ago
  If the goal is to maximize your chances it would not be to start a company. It would be get a degree from decent school + white collar work for 10-20 years (whilst paying off student loans) + diligently investing in index funds and home ownership. That is how guys are getting rich on Reddit 'FIRE' subs at 30-40-years old, not start-ups.
  - bdangubic 3y ago
    That can get you rich - not wealthy
    - paulpauper 3y ago
      depends on definition of wealthy
      - bdangubic 3y ago
        Charles Barkley is rich, Bill Gates is wealthy
paulpauper 3y ago
It's n=1 and huge survivorship bias. There is not that much useful or applicable in this essay. Yeah starting a company is one way to get rich, but the odds are not that good and start-up costs are higher than ever. Nothing is getting cheaper, whether it's advertising, labor, or developing the product. The $ offered by YC wouldn't even cover a typical salary for a single coder or an adverting budget, although being chosen by YC does help to some degree in the latter though. Same for Thiel Fellowship: Not much $ either. You need a lot more than being offered by these incubators, which is a pittance. Back in the '90s it was easier to get decent funding, plus costs were way lower even adjusted for inflation. Now it's huge competition for bread crumbs, plus huge expenses. On Reddit investing and 'FIRE' subs, way more young and middle-aged people getting rich (as in 7-8 figures) with lucrative white collar jobs or being early in a start-up, plus investing in stock market and real estate, than creating actual companies. You can do well in computer science classes without ever really learning to program. In fact you can graduate with a degree in computer science from a top university and still not be any good at programming. That's why tech companies all make you take a coding test before they'll hire you, regardless of where you went to university or how well you did there. They know grades and exam results prove nothing. Yeah, theoretical computer science is not the same as coding. The guys who did theoretical AI work seem to do okay though.
oli5679 3y ago
https://www.forbes.com/consent/ketch/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/ https://www.forbes.com/consent/ketch/?toURL=https://www.forb... If I look here, top 20 are 17 founders and 3 heirs (2 Waltons - Walmart, and one Bettencourt - L’Oreal)
- feedforward 3y ago
  So Musk whose father owned diamond mines is not an heir. Arnault whose father owned Ferret-Savinel is not an heir. Gates father was a prominent lawyer, his mother was an heiress who was on a board with the chairman of IBM. Even looking at those who are not classified as heirs - Zuckerberg's high school currently costs over $50,000 a year. Buffett's father was a congressman and his family owned grocery stores. Not billionaires, but people with more wealth and connections then even our minority of upper middle class people.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by gumby 3y ago

petesergeant 3y ago

Certainly a few, but a quick scan of lists makes it look more like 25% inherited in the top 20 or so

namdnay 3y ago
I think it depends where you set the limit between “self made” and “inherited”. I don’t think it’s black or white Would Gates have made it if Mum wasn’t on the board of IBM? Would Bezos have made it without 200k from mum&dad ?
- importantbrian 3y ago
  The real problem with those lists is that they only include people whose wealth is known and can be reasonably valued based on public sources. It's often not easy to trace the net worth of old-money families. It also means you won't find people from countries with very low transparency or dictators on the list. For example, you won't find Putin or any of the Saudi royals on the Forbes list even though they are among the wealthiest people in the world. Perhaps even competing for #1 depending on what estimate of their wealth you find to be the most reliable. It's impossible to draw any firm conclusions from those lists because they aren't representative samples of wealthy people. They're a sample of wealthy people with public assets, and of course that's going to skew heavily towards people who founded large publically traded companies who live in countries with high degrees of financial transparency.
  - secstate 3y ago
    Which makes one feel even shittier when you realize that even with that skewing, the list STILL contains a lot of inherited-wealth or comfortable-highly-educated-wealth people.
- Aunche 3y ago
  > Would Bezos have made it without 200k from mum&dad ? Bezos was already the youngest Senior Vice President at DE Shaw before he started Amazon, so he wouldn't have any problem finding other investors. His mom had Bezos as a teenager, and his adoptive dad was a young Cuban refugee. His grandfather was rich though.
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago
  I would consider someone who has made >1000x what they were given as self made without any doubt. Yes $200k or being in IBM's board or being US citizen or being able to afford Stanford is not a small thing for many, but saying that those were the biggest determining factor in making them richest is just being cynic on their progress.
- petesergeant 3y ago
  > I think it depends where you set the limit between “self made” and “inherited”. I don’t think it’s black or white That’s a fair point to make in the abstract, but it’s absolutely, breath-takingly extraordinary to turn moderately well-off parents into a top-twenty global wealth position. I went to high school and university with many people considerably more privileged than either of those, and the challenge is generally in not mismanaging the assets too poorly so there’s enough to pass on to the next generation.
martinohansen 3y ago
> […] you need to do well in your classes to get into a good university. Isn’t this also mostly inherited: do most get into the good universities because of their grades or their connections? Can most get good grades without an “inherited” support system?
sarimkx 3y ago
Inherited wealth did see an increase in 2023 in the UBS Wealth Report. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-20231130-the-great-wealth-transfer.html https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-2023... https://fortune.com/europe/2023/11/30/billionaire-heirs-overtook-self-made-ones-ubs-taxes-and-philanthropy/ https://fortune.com/europe/2023/11/30/billionaire-heirs-over...
paulpauper 3y ago
Except for Waltons or the occasional Saudi, there is much more tech wealth compared to inherited wealth.

LarsDu88 3y ago

Parents who started companies. Lookin' at you Walton kids!

wilshiredetroit 3y ago

"choosing their parents correctly" - yes.. having great parents doing their best is probably one of the main indicators of success. (mileage definitely varies) A child can learn a lot from their parents.. things like prudence, patience, work ethic.. a lot of folks think its about "inheritance". imho

gist 3y ago

> If you look at the lists of the richest people that occasionally get published in the press, nearly all of them did it by starting their own companies. And actually it's a stupid point to begin with; making a point by choosing the absolute top percentage as if there is nothing other than 'really' rich (forget whether that is even a good thing I'd argue it's not a plus to have that much money and notoriety). There is of course 'lots of money' or 'comfortable'. Irony also that Paul is probably not on that list but even if he was it's not because he 'built a google' but rather he decided to be an investor and incubator spreading bets over many potential winners. Also ironic that Paul had decided rather than making more money he'd rather spend time with his family.

paulpauper 3y ago
I am sure he has at least a billion. That is really rich
feedforward 3y ago
Of course you're correct, but forget about that - two thirds of the team that started Viaweb and then Y-Combinator crashed, according to then contemporary reports, 10% of the machines on the Internet for the fun of vandalism or a prank or whatever. The one who was charged did no jail time - Graham wasn't even charged. He then goes on to exploit young techies to put himself in a very prime position in the relations of production. Nowadays he tweets minimally veiled racist tweets about the supposed biological superiority of his brain compared to the rest of us, especially other races. Talk about privilege.
- user_7832 3y ago
  > Nowadays he tweets minimally veiled racist tweets about the supposed biological superiority of his brain compared to the rest of us, especially other races. I’m curious, what are you referring to?

hintymad 3y ago

I guess luck plays a big role in one's success. That said, pg's points still hold, as he is telling us how to maximize our chance of success despite of what we are born with.

paulpauper 3y ago
If the goal is to maximize your chances it would not be to start a company. It would be get a degree from decent school + white collar work for 10-20 years (whilst paying off student loans) + diligently investing in index funds and home ownership. That is how guys are getting rich on Reddit 'FIRE' subs at 30-40-years old, not start-ups.
- bdangubic 3y ago
  That can get you rich - not wealthy
  - paulpauper 3y ago
    depends on definition of wealthy
    - bdangubic 3y ago
      Charles Barkley is rich, Bill Gates is wealthy

paulpauper 3y ago

It's n=1 and huge survivorship bias. There is not that much useful or applicable in this essay. Yeah starting a company is one way to get rich, but the odds are not that good and start-up costs are higher than ever. Nothing is getting cheaper, whether it's advertising, labor, or developing the product. The $ offered by YC wouldn't even cover a typical salary for a single coder or an adverting budget, although being chosen by YC does help to some degree in the latter though. Same for Thiel Fellowship: Not much $ either. You need a lot more than being offered by these incubators, which is a pittance. Back in the '90s it was easier to get decent funding, plus costs were way lower even adjusted for inflation. Now it's huge competition for bread crumbs, plus huge expenses. On Reddit investing and 'FIRE' subs, way more young and middle-aged people getting rich (as in 7-8 figures) with lucrative white collar jobs or being early in a start-up, plus investing in stock market and real estate, than creating actual companies. You can do well in computer science classes without ever really learning to program. In fact you can graduate with a degree in computer science from a top university and still not be any good at programming. That's why tech companies all make you take a coding test before they'll hire you, regardless of where you went to university or how well you did there. They know grades and exam results prove nothing. Yeah, theoretical computer science is not the same as coding. The guys who did theoretical AI work seem to do okay though.

oli5679 3y ago

https://www.forbes.com/consent/ketch/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/ https://www.forbes.com/consent/ketch/?toURL=https://www.forb... If I look here, top 20 are 17 founders and 3 heirs (2 Waltons - Walmart, and one Bettencourt - L’Oreal)

feedforward 3y ago
So Musk whose father owned diamond mines is not an heir. Arnault whose father owned Ferret-Savinel is not an heir. Gates father was a prominent lawyer, his mother was an heiress who was on a board with the chairman of IBM. Even looking at those who are not classified as heirs - Zuckerberg's high school currently costs over $50,000 a year. Buffett's father was a congressman and his family owned grocery stores. Not billionaires, but people with more wealth and connections then even our minority of upper middle class people.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]