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PG is contrasting getting rich through inheritance vs. through starting a business, and saying "look, different kinds of people are getting rich!" I'd argue the
by ryandrake 2y ago
PG is contrasting getting rich through inheritance vs. through starting a business, and saying "look, different kinds of people are getting rich!" I'd argue these are two sides of the same coin. The people getting rich are, by and large, the people who already have money. Sure, there are a few notable exceptions, that HN commenters will no doubt point out. How many of the top 100 richest people in the world today had already-well-off families backstopping their risk-taking? That's really not that different than just being an heir.
- gizmo 2y agoA decade ago the vast majority of YC founders came from middle-class or upper-middle families. Maybe it's different today, but I doubt it. The people who got rich through YC would otherwise have lived unremarkable lives working for Apple or Amazon or wherever.
- ryandrake 2y agoI dunno--I think "upper middle class" is a clever euphemism invented by rich people to try to convince the actual middle class that they're a lot like us, just a little more "upper." Someone with the means to send their kid to Cornell or Harvard doesn't strike me as being very close to middle class. Being in tech, I've worked with a good number of Director-level people discussing their kids' private schooling, their -multiple- live-in nannies, and their Tahoe vacation home, yet they'd insist they were middle class.