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They were builders, they had businesses building for other people and invested their own money and time into these buildings for their own family. Luck in exac
by aorloff 2y ago
They were builders, they had businesses building for other people and invested their own money and time into these buildings for their own family.
Luck in exactly what sense ?
Yes, they did not die of dysentery on the trail, so evidently some luck was involved, but the wealth building seems very intentional and causal.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoSee, you’ve caught yourself in the trap. Lots of builders fail, look at the YC startup failure rate. Even investing in broad equity index funds is luck (sequence risk). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40378138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40378138 https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/02/business/20110102-metrics-graphic.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011...
- aorloff 2y agoI meant construction developers as a trade for others.
- kortilla 2y agoYou’ve caught yourself in the trap of thinking that passing something with a high failure rate means luck.
- rpdillon 2y agoThis is a tired argument. Success in life will always be a combination of luck, and hard work to set yourself up to take advantage of the luck when it arrives. For some, the luck will never arrive. And for many, the luck will arrive, but they won't be ready for it. The only practical advice to give people is to prepare the best they can for when and if it does.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoI’m not arguing the advice, I’m arguing the religion and belief system.
- aorloff 2y agoIn the context of a discussion about wealth, its true that the financialization of real estate and runaway values of the greater Silicon Valley were a stroke of luck, but when talking about building wealth, housing has intrinsic value that I think takes a lot of that kind of SV luck out of the picture.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoHousing value is land value. Did you buy or build in the right location? Luck! Did commercial real estate know WFH post Covid was going to obliterate CRE values? Again, bad luck.
- aorloff 2y agoThis is true, many people got hung out to dry who happened to hold office properties when COVID hit. But the housing could have just housed the family members if times were tight. For at least the first generation, it did. That's intrinsic value, not valuation according to a market.
- soared 2y agoLuck that their grandpa built the duplex. I am unlucky that my grandpa did not build a duplex. Luck that their parents held the assets and did not sell it.
- throwaway22032 2y agoThis is not luck. Your grandfather chose your grandmother and so too did your parents. Your parents deciding to do something is not luck either. I want my children to have an inheritance, the actions I take to ensure that are ongoing deliberate choices to build wealth over having fun.
- soared 2y agoYes, so it’s completely out of your children’s control whether or not you chose those decisions. Therefore, they are lucky you are doing that. They have zero impact on whether or not the actions of their grandparents resulted in generational wealth.
- throwaway22032 2y agoNonsense. You posted this comment 7 hours ago. Current you has zero impact on whether you posted it. Time flows forwards, not backwards.
- soared 2y agoWhat action did you take that caused your grandpa to invest in real estate? If none, it is lucky for you that your grandpa took one action over another, as you had no impact on the event.
- throwaway22032 2y agoYou can call it luck as many times as you like, I simply disagree. If my dad builds me a shed it is no more lucky than if I build a shed. We should leave this here, I feel that we just have different relationships with our parents :)