6 ms·

whose father was one of the leading local industrialists (installing the first electric lighting for the 1885 Munich Oktoberfest)

by singularity2001 2y ago

nextworddev 2y ago
It’s fascinating how the affluent backgrounds of many famous scientists and entrepreneurs are downplayed. Eg Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, etc
- xdavidliu 2y ago
  Bill Gates, but (according to the Isaacson book) not Elon Musk
  - concordDance 2y ago
    I'm now curious which of Gates, Musk and Bezos families were wealthier when they started their respective careers... I suspect Bezos, then Gates, then Musk, but it could be any order.
- throw310822 2y ago
  I would be very happy to be able to multiply my parents'/family's money by whatever factor Bezos, Gates or Musk have multiplied theirs.
  - LightBug1 2y ago
    The multiplier would be significantly different. Think the Wright Brothers first aeroplane vs a rocket ship.
    - daedrdev 2y ago
      There were at least hundreds of thousands if not millions who had easier starts them Jeff Besos.
      - LightBug1 2y ago
        The mental exercise is to compare two identical Jeff Bezos' (identify his attributes), one has the background/funds they did, one doesn't. Of course, that's not possible, so then you do the same with other highly intelligent and skilled tech professionals. I'd argue that without the funding and other resources, those skilled pro's won't get anywhere. But with it, some would do incredibly well. It's not common in a global sense, but we see it every single day. Comparing Bezos to thousands/millions of randomised others is pointless. Then you may say, oh but Amazon is unique. Yes, but then there are other factors at play. Like the luck (skill? funding?) to take advantage of a unique moment in time at the start of the web. That moment isn't available eveI mean, try to start an Amazon today ... etc
        throw310822 2y ago
        I think the question is not whether Bezos, or Gates, were helped by a reasonably wealthy family. The question is- was that wealth helpful because it allowed them to fully develop their own potential; or they have no merit at all and anybody with that wealth would have done the same? I think those who point out the privileged start of these entrepreneurs are suggesting the second, and yet that makes no sense (millions had the same privilege and didn't get anywhere close).
        LightBug1 2y ago
        Disagree. I'm not suggesting the person in question does not have potential or merit and that anyone can do it. It's just that the wealth of a family can pour rocket fuel on that person to enable them to reach their potential. Yes, that's debatable in each case, everyone has a different story. But it's very likely. You do get the counterfactual, the plucky upstart who came from nothing. But I'd wager big that that's much rarer and more difficult.
- DevX101 2y ago
  If you gave the $300,000 Bezos got from his father to 10,000 random Americans in 1994, none of them would have created a company the equivalent of Amazon's scale.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - stonemetal12 2y ago
    How many of those 10k would have the same background? We can pretend Bezos' dad raised him in a "normal" middle class background then randomly dropped 300K on him, or we can acknowledge he is the business equivalent of an Olympic athlete.
    - varelse 2y ago
      Bezos? Abandoned by his dad who was literally an alcoholic clown and raised by his mom and her 2nd husband Bezos? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Jorgensen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Jorgensen So $300K in 1994 is about $640K. That's nice but about 80th percentile of net worth. It's nice his parents believed in him. How many of your parents would do that for you? I'm sure at 1 in 5 of them have that kind of money because of the distribution here. So the difference here is He was smart, he got lucky, and your parents don't believe in you enough on this front. But compare and contrast Bezos and Musk. Bezos's mid-life crisis is leaving his wife to run around on his yacht banging models. Musk's mid-life crisis is trying to destroy democracy so he and his mom won't have to pay US taxes. Neither one is a role model, but I don't even get the point of the latter. Which brings us back to AlphaFold. The AlphaFold team did something amazing. But also, they had a backer that believed in them. David Baker, for better or worse, didn't achieve what they did and he'd been at it for decades. It's amazing what good backing can achieve.
      - itishappy 2y ago
        I assumed the parent post was talking about his adopted father. The man who raised and dropped $250k on Bezos was Miguel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Bezos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Bezos
- chongli 2y ago
  Because having some degree of runway is almost always necessary but never sufficient. Thousands of Americans receive similar amounts of money from their parents in the form of inheritance of the family home and other major assets. Only one took windfall of that size and created Amazon.
  - concordDance 2y ago
    The "necessary, but not sufficient" is unintuitive to most people. Billionaires who come from working class families are almost unheard of, but probably more than half the self made (for a definition, something like multiplied familial investments by at least 100x maybe?) billionaires come from upper middle class families. I wonder if they are actually more likely to come from upper middle class (where parents are highly paid professionals) than the proper idle rich or even CEOs and company founders...
    - djtango 2y ago
      Yes... Like Taylor Swift To my mind, Joe Rogan is the most recent embodiment of the American dream which is why I think he is so popular
      - 77pt77 2y ago
        > To my mind, Joe Rogan is the most recent embodiment of the American dream Look how that turned out... Maybe the dream is more like a nightmare.
- timmg 2y ago
  There’s another side to this: if you accept the idea of “nature” — genes capable of carrying “talent” (in some sense) — it should be common for children of talented people to be talented. Of course, talent doesn’t always mean prosperity. But in a society modeled on meritocracy, it often will.
- km155 2y ago
  hypothesis : it's not per se affluence. it's the culture of the family and social circle. A dollop of $ to have some free time and maybe buy some books would help and might be necessary. imagine a family where youngster is encouraged to work on intellectual problems. where you aren't made fun of for touching nerdy things. or for doing puzzles. where the social circle endorses learning. these things more important than $ in a first world economy. (if third world, yes give me some money please for a book or even just food. and hopefully with time, an internet connected device then the cream will rise they can just watch feynman on YouTube...) that said, it's "better" than it used to be. hundreds of years ago most interesting science, etc. was done by the royal class. not because they are smarter (I assume). But they had free time. And, social encouragement perhaps too. bill gates and zuck dropped out of Harvard right? it's not per se Harvard, at least not the graduating bit? being surrounded by other smart people is helpful -- and or people who encourage intellectual endeavors.
  - bonoboTP 2y ago
    > hundreds of years ago most interesting science, etc. was done by the royal class Not really true. Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Mendel, Faraday, Tesla... Not from royals, nor from high nobility. Many great scientists were born to merchant families, of a level that wasn't even all too rare.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  About Warren Buffett, I was surprised to see his name here. Wiki tells me that his father, Howard Buffett, was: > four-term Republican United States Representative for the state of Nebraska To me, that doesn't sound super impressive. Also: > After failing to secure a job in the family grocery business, he started a small stock brokerage firm. Ok, that sounds less impressive. Further: > During his first term, when congressional salary was raised from $10,000 Oh wait. That is real money. 10k USD in 1943 is 180k today. Surely upper middle class by any measure.

whose father was one of the leading local industrialists (installing the first electric lighting for the 1885 Munich Oktoberfest)

nextworddev 2y ago

It’s fascinating how the affluent backgrounds of many famous scientists and entrepreneurs are downplayed. Eg Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, etc

xdavidliu 2y ago
Bill Gates, but (according to the Isaacson book) not Elon Musk
- concordDance 2y ago
  I'm now curious which of Gates, Musk and Bezos families were wealthier when they started their respective careers... I suspect Bezos, then Gates, then Musk, but it could be any order.
throw310822 2y ago
I would be very happy to be able to multiply my parents'/family's money by whatever factor Bezos, Gates or Musk have multiplied theirs.
- LightBug1 2y ago
  The multiplier would be significantly different. Think the Wright Brothers first aeroplane vs a rocket ship.
  - daedrdev 2y ago
    There were at least hundreds of thousands if not millions who had easier starts them Jeff Besos.
    - LightBug1 2y ago
      The mental exercise is to compare two identical Jeff Bezos' (identify his attributes), one has the background/funds they did, one doesn't. Of course, that's not possible, so then you do the same with other highly intelligent and skilled tech professionals. I'd argue that without the funding and other resources, those skilled pro's won't get anywhere. But with it, some would do incredibly well. It's not common in a global sense, but we see it every single day. Comparing Bezos to thousands/millions of randomised others is pointless. Then you may say, oh but Amazon is unique. Yes, but then there are other factors at play. Like the luck (skill? funding?) to take advantage of a unique moment in time at the start of the web. That moment isn't available eveI mean, try to start an Amazon today ... etc
      - throw310822 2y ago
        I think the question is not whether Bezos, or Gates, were helped by a reasonably wealthy family. The question is- was that wealth helpful because it allowed them to fully develop their own potential; or they have no merit at all and anybody with that wealth would have done the same? I think those who point out the privileged start of these entrepreneurs are suggesting the second, and yet that makes no sense (millions had the same privilege and didn't get anywhere close).
        LightBug1 2y ago
        Disagree. I'm not suggesting the person in question does not have potential or merit and that anyone can do it. It's just that the wealth of a family can pour rocket fuel on that person to enable them to reach their potential. Yes, that's debatable in each case, everyone has a different story. But it's very likely. You do get the counterfactual, the plucky upstart who came from nothing. But I'd wager big that that's much rarer and more difficult.
DevX101 2y ago
If you gave the $300,000 Bezos got from his father to 10,000 random Americans in 1994, none of them would have created a company the equivalent of Amazon's scale.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- stonemetal12 2y ago
  How many of those 10k would have the same background? We can pretend Bezos' dad raised him in a "normal" middle class background then randomly dropped 300K on him, or we can acknowledge he is the business equivalent of an Olympic athlete.
  - varelse 2y ago
    Bezos? Abandoned by his dad who was literally an alcoholic clown and raised by his mom and her 2nd husband Bezos? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Jorgensen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Jorgensen So $300K in 1994 is about $640K. That's nice but about 80th percentile of net worth. It's nice his parents believed in him. How many of your parents would do that for you? I'm sure at 1 in 5 of them have that kind of money because of the distribution here. So the difference here is He was smart, he got lucky, and your parents don't believe in you enough on this front. But compare and contrast Bezos and Musk. Bezos's mid-life crisis is leaving his wife to run around on his yacht banging models. Musk's mid-life crisis is trying to destroy democracy so he and his mom won't have to pay US taxes. Neither one is a role model, but I don't even get the point of the latter. Which brings us back to AlphaFold. The AlphaFold team did something amazing. But also, they had a backer that believed in them. David Baker, for better or worse, didn't achieve what they did and he'd been at it for decades. It's amazing what good backing can achieve.
    - itishappy 2y ago
      I assumed the parent post was talking about his adopted father. The man who raised and dropped $250k on Bezos was Miguel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Bezos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Bezos
chongli 2y ago
Because having some degree of runway is almost always necessary but never sufficient. Thousands of Americans receive similar amounts of money from their parents in the form of inheritance of the family home and other major assets. Only one took windfall of that size and created Amazon.
- concordDance 2y ago
  The "necessary, but not sufficient" is unintuitive to most people. Billionaires who come from working class families are almost unheard of, but probably more than half the self made (for a definition, something like multiplied familial investments by at least 100x maybe?) billionaires come from upper middle class families. I wonder if they are actually more likely to come from upper middle class (where parents are highly paid professionals) than the proper idle rich or even CEOs and company founders...
  - djtango 2y ago
    Yes... Like Taylor Swift To my mind, Joe Rogan is the most recent embodiment of the American dream which is why I think he is so popular
    - 77pt77 2y ago
      > To my mind, Joe Rogan is the most recent embodiment of the American dream Look how that turned out... Maybe the dream is more like a nightmare.
timmg 2y ago
There’s another side to this: if you accept the idea of “nature” — genes capable of carrying “talent” (in some sense) — it should be common for children of talented people to be talented. Of course, talent doesn’t always mean prosperity. But in a society modeled on meritocracy, it often will.
km155 2y ago
hypothesis : it's not per se affluence. it's the culture of the family and social circle. A dollop of $ to have some free time and maybe buy some books would help and might be necessary. imagine a family where youngster is encouraged to work on intellectual problems. where you aren't made fun of for touching nerdy things. or for doing puzzles. where the social circle endorses learning. these things more important than $ in a first world economy. (if third world, yes give me some money please for a book or even just food. and hopefully with time, an internet connected device then the cream will rise they can just watch feynman on YouTube...) that said, it's "better" than it used to be. hundreds of years ago most interesting science, etc. was done by the royal class. not because they are smarter (I assume). But they had free time. And, social encouragement perhaps too. bill gates and zuck dropped out of Harvard right? it's not per se Harvard, at least not the graduating bit? being surrounded by other smart people is helpful -- and or people who encourage intellectual endeavors.
- bonoboTP 2y ago
  > hundreds of years ago most interesting science, etc. was done by the royal class Not really true. Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Mendel, Faraday, Tesla... Not from royals, nor from high nobility. Many great scientists were born to merchant families, of a level that wasn't even all too rare.
throwaway2037 2y ago
About Warren Buffett, I was surprised to see his name here. Wiki tells me that his father, Howard Buffett, was: > four-term Republican United States Representative for the state of Nebraska To me, that doesn't sound super impressive. Also: > After failing to secure a job in the family grocery business, he started a small stock brokerage firm. Ok, that sounds less impressive. Further: > During his first term, when congressional salary was raised from $10,000 Oh wait. That is real money. 10k USD in 1943 is 180k today. Surely upper middle class by any measure.