7 ms·

Who are you thinking of? Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk all came from wealthy families. They all had the safety net of their family wealth if their business did

Who are you thinking of? Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk all came from wealthy families. They all had the safety net of their family wealth if their business didn’t work out. Even someone who had parents to pay their student loans is relatively privileged, not everyone starts their 20’s debt-free and able to take financial risks.

wisty 11mo ago
What was Musk families net worth? I hear this conspiracy theory that he's was super rich. But owning a mine could mean anything from a basically bankrupt speculator to the De Beers. There's claims he gave Musk $28k ... that's not evena decent college fund.
- wnevets 11mo ago
  They had this amount of money > As a result of this, the teenage Elon Musk once walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket. His father said: “We were very wealthy. We had so much money at times we couldn’t even close our safe,” adding that one person would have to hold the money in place with another closing the door. “And then there’d still be all these notes sticking out and we’d sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.” [1] [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-made-money-rich-b2212599.html https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-made-money-ric...
  - eru 11mo ago
    That seems pretty silly. Why keep your wealth as cash in a safe? (And why not use a fraction of the money to buy a second safe, if you really have to keep it in a safe at home.)
    - prerok 11mo ago
      That was probably just their pocket money.
      - eru 11mo ago
        Well, there might have been some weirdness about South Africa at the time. Perhaps financial institutions had some weird weaknesses.
    - tonyedgecombe 11mo ago
      To keep it away from the tax man.
      - eru 11mo ago
        Maybe. But wouldn't you rather hire a good accountant and lawyer instead of bothering with cash at home?
        tonyedgecombe 11mo ago
        A good accountant or lawyer would tell you to pay the taxes you can't avoid.
        eru 11mo ago
        The trick is to make as many taxes as possible avoidable.
    - LanceH 11mo ago
      I know nothing about this specific situation, so I'm not speak to that. I am speaking to "why keep your wealth as cash in a safe?" I'm old enough that grandparents lived through the great depression. I know they kept wealth in a safe. A lot of their kids did as well. The grandparents had their gold money taken away, or their cash disappeared in banks. A lot of their kids followed along. Being gen X, Elon has parents/grandparents that lived through the great depression and world war. That along with any other local factors makes keeping wealth in a safe not that unusual.
      - eru 11mo ago
        Elon Musk grew up in South Africa.
    - wnevets 11mo ago
      > That seems pretty silly. Why keep your wealth as cash in a safe? Was it during the apartheid boycotts?
  - input_sh 11mo ago
    The pocket emerald story that comes before that "we were very wealthy" line is even more telling. It's missing from that Independent article, but that article's based on this Business Insider interview: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-about-the-familys-casual-attitude-to-wealth-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-abou... > Elon, by his father’s recollection then probably 16 years old, and his brother Kimbal, decided to sell emeralds to Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue in New York – one of the world's most famous jewelers – as his father lay sleeping. "They just walked into Tiffany’s and said, ‘Do you want to buy some emeralds?’" Errol recalled in an interview with Business Insider South Africa. "And they sold two emeralds, one was for $800 and I think the other one was for $1,200." > A few days later the family returned to the store to find that Tiffany was selling the $800 emerald, now set in a ring, for $24,000 -- a markup of 30 times the price Elon had received for the gem. > Errol has used the story as on object lesson in how retail works ever since. He was surprised but not concerned by the incident, Errol says, because money was plentiful. > “We were very wealthy,” says Errol. “We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.” So, selling-emeralds-to-Tiffany's-at-16 rich.
  - wisty 11mo ago
    So his dad was so poor he kept his money in a safe ... You can fit maybe 2 million in a safe. Maybe less if it's poorly packed, small denominations, other items in storage (id, etc). A safe full of money is like having an investment property, it's not really a sign of unreal wealth. It's like some 20 year old on TikTok flexing a Rolex with aftermarket "diamonds" - it isn't dirt poor but it's not what you'd exactly call generational wealth. You don't even hear Trump bragging about having a ton of cash - even the crassest most trashy rich person wouldn't brag about a safe full of cash. Half the posters here probably have parents with more assets. Just look at how insanely biased people are here. Elon once allegedly stole $2k worth of emeralds from his dad, and they're gushing over what fabulous wealth that is. $2k is a phone or a laptop. Elon was so madly rich he stole something as valuable as a laptop from his dad, and this is somehow evidence that he's basically a de Beers?
    - wnevets 11mo ago
      I can't tell if this is rage bait or not.
      - wisty 11mo ago
        What do you disagree with? 1. A safe would hold less than $2M. 2. Someone bragging about less than $2 million in assets is not unbelievably rich. 3. People talk about Musk in a way that suggests his parents were extremely rich.
        SJC_Hacker 11mo ago
        Over $2 million in assets about the time Musk was matriculating would have put in the top 0.1%, e.g. 1 in 1000. That would be fairly rich to me
        wnevets 11mo ago
        > What do you disagree with? His parents are telling you they were very wealthy and you somehow managed to come to the conclusion that Elon grew up poor. I guarantee you the median American isn't so wealthy their safes are overflowing with cash.
- astura 11mo ago
  From his dad's Wikipedia page: >His lucrative engineering business took on "large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base." He also owned an auto parts store, at least half a share in an emerald mine, and even "one of the biggest houses in Pretoria."[12] His ex-wife Maye's book recalls that at the time of their divorce in 1979, he owned two homes, a yacht, a plane, five luxury cars, and a truck.[13] Elon was 8 in 1979.
  - darkwater 11mo ago
    Only 2 homes? What a loser...
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 11mo ago
Musk took low wage jobs when he arrived in the US.
- bdangubic 11mo ago
  Zuckerberg’s salary today is $1 :)
- raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
  Is this some type of founders myth? Musk left Canada at 17, went to college in the US and sold is first business in 1999. But I also worked at low minimum wage job at 18 at Radio Shack while living at home with my parents driving the car my parents bought me. I assure you if I have lost my job, it wouldn’t have hurt. I would just spend more time hanging out with my friends and on my $4K Mac setup. Musk was not going to be homeless if he failed.
  - WalterBright 11mo ago
    Feel free to read a biography of him. > Musk was not going to be homeless if he failed. Right. He'd just get a job and rent an apartment. I had a friend who started company after company starting in high school. Some were more successful than others, but he never lost his enthusiasm for the next company. The last time I saw him, he was living out of a trailer because he put everything he had into his next company. (Sadly, he passed a few years ago from an accident.) He left behind a large wake, and his memorial service was packed. (He grew up in poverty.)
    - omnicognate 11mo ago
      I'm not sure what point is being made here. AIUI, Musk comes from a wealthy family. Are you saying a biography would say otherwise? I think the point people are making about the low wage jobs is that it's irrelevant. People from wealthy backgrounds take low paid jobs sometimes, so having done so doesn't imply he's a rags-to-riches story.
      - 11mo ago
bear141 11mo ago
You can choose to think that op meant only the most insanely rich billionaires. I thought they meant their actual experiences with peers. Cut out the outliers and be realistic and I think it’s easier to understand the point without the extremism. The range of what people consider success is quite large.
- sillyfluke 11mo ago
  Yes, it's a bit forced trying to turn someone's anecdotes that spur some food for thought into some kind of a categoric stance. They asked the parent who they were thinking of, a more recent example of an "up and coming" billionaire would be Palmer Luckey, whose life experience seems to be at least consistent with his stance against optionality. Edit: Ref "A lot of my peers in the tech industry do not share this philosophy … They’re always pursuing everything with optionality. ’Oh, I need to be able to raise money from anybody. I need to be able to sell my business in any way. I need to have liquidity in any way. I need to make sure that I’m not closing myself off to future romantic partners. I need to make sure I’ve got my options open. I need to make sure that I’m not going to buy a house and settle down in one place and lock myself down. Oh, having children. I don’t know. Maybe I’m not ready to commit to that path." https://archive.is/BlzA9 https://archive.is/BlzA9
  - engineer_22 11mo ago
    Puer Aeternus,,,
- an0malous 11mo ago
  I chose those examples because they’re well known and public. I asked for counter examples and no one seems to be able to share any.
  - kelnos 11mo ago
    I posted some as a reply to one of your other posts. Why do we need well-known, public examples? I think it would be absurd to assert that there are very few successful founders that don't come from wealthy families. (Just as it would be absurd to suggest there are few that do come from wealthy families.)
lo_zamoyski 11mo ago
These are outliers. Think of motivation. Most people who live financially comfortable lives will want little more in the way of wealth when balanced against risk and effort. They also have something to lose. Their circumstances shift the incentives. Now think of the temperaments of people who chase wealth. If they come from money, then the comfort they live in is not going to satisfy them. If they come from financially less than stellar backgrounds, they may be more likely to crave that kind of attainment; money is a kind of unfamiliar blank canvas onto which they can project all sorts of fantastic expectations (most of which are bogus). And unlike the better off, they have less to lose. Add to all this an inferiority complex that can compel compensation behavior. They may have a tougher start financially, but psychologically, they are more compelled by their circumstances than their wealthier counterparts. So we should avoid being reductive. And we should stop reducing “success” to money.
- abustamam 11mo ago
  I don't think anyone in this particular thread was necessarily reducing or equating success to money, they were merely pointing out examples in which certain folks attained financial success. The parent-most comment was referring to the importance of a safety net in order to get more chances (whether it's risking it to become a business owner, or going back to school, or whatever your definition of success is). And it's true. If you have a good financial safety net then you can take more chances and increase the odds that your next risk will be the one that works out. Of course, the most easily quantifiable definition of success is usually financial, and on and off HN, it's probably the most common definition of success. For me myself, I'm grateful to be doing well financially. I grew up in an upper middle class family. But I still do want to grow my wealth. I am not going to take wild risks to do so, but I'll work hard and use my current wealth wisely to grow it. What will more wealth get me? Financial security, freedom. It'll give my wife and me the freedom to choose if we want to stay at home with the kids. It'll let us easily fund their college, or whatever education or path they decide to pursue. The goal isn't being a billionaire. It's freedom and security. I think that's success for a lot of people, and it usually manifests itself as just having more money because that's the first step. But it's not always the end goal.
granzymes 11mo ago
Bezos’ mom had him at 17, his biological father owned a bike shop, and his mother remarried when Bezos was 4 to a Cuban immigrant who came to the country at 16 and ended up working as a petroleum engineer. They wound up middle class after all that, but I certainly wouldn’t say Bezos came from a “wealthy family”.
- mattm 11mo ago
  Bezos' parents lent him $250k to start Amazon. The point is that by the time Bezos started Amazon they were wealthy and could provide him this safety net. Not many middle class families would be able to loan their kid that much money.
  - granzymes 11mo ago
    That $250k was their life’s savings. They made a huge bet on their son. His mom took night classes while raising him so she could finish her education while working to support a family.
    - skeeter2020 11mo ago
      isn't this an argument against the original post: that the more dice rolls the greater likelihood of success?
    - an0malous 11mo ago
      Do you have a source for that being their life savings? Most of your points have nothing to do with their wealth. Why would it suggest they’re poor if his mom had him at 17 and was taking night classes while raising him? She wasn’t employed, that just sounds like she herself was still able to take risks beyond her means probably because her father was wealthy.
      - kelnos 11mo ago
        Do you have a source for that not being their life savings? It sounds like you're just making assumptions and guesses as well; if you're going to assert Bezos came from wealth in the first place, you have to back that up. Perusing the "early life" section of Bezos' Wikipedia page doesn't suggest to me that he came from money, at least. But I don't see anyone on either side of the argument presenting anything beyond that.
ericmcer 11mo ago
Yeah they aren't like, outlier wealthy though. They all had lawyer/doctor/banker parents. If having your student loans paid off for you is enough, then there are 10s of millions of people in their shoes. Why did they not succeed if that is what it takes?
- skeeter2020 11mo ago
  >> Why did they not succeed if that is what it takes? short answer: it's might be necessary but not sufficient. Alex Honnold, the rock climber with some pretty spectacular solo / speed ascents was asked why no-one else has free soloed El Cap, replied "it's hard." he spent a lot of time (years) building up to it and finishing other routes, and no one else has taken these first steps yet. He goes on that they may have the talent or disposition, but not the motivation or an experience that pushes them in another direction. His perspective (similar to general outlier success) is others will do it but it takes a bunch of things all coming together, including luck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDTg4P9ZdP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDTg4P9ZdP4
- an0malous 11mo ago
  I didn’t say they need to be outlier wealthy, I’m disagreeing with the assertion that it just takes focus and grit to be successful. I agree with the initial comment that it has more to do with how many chances you get to take, and being able to take chances throughout your 20’s is a relatively rare and privileged opportunity. Most people need to find gainful employment immediately after college, they can’t take 5-10 years making no money on long shot bets. Where are you getting the figure that there are 10’s of millions of college grads in their 20’s with no debt? There are only 2 million undergraduate grads in the US every year. I think you’re probably off by a couple orders of magnitude.
- spixy 11mo ago
  Contacts. Bill Gates mother worked with IBM CEO. Without her maybe IBM would choose other company than Microsoft.
  - SJC_Hacker 11mo ago
bartread 11mo ago
> Who are you thinking of? It’s pretty clear that @Aurornis is talking about people they know personally. They literally mention that they’re talking about people they grew up with. Whereas you are talking about a completely different group of people: Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk are the survivorship bias set. You’re talking at cross purposes with the person you’re responding to.
- izacus 11mo ago
  Why would anyone base their debate on "people they know"?! What kind of conversation is worth having with someone who doesn't understand observation bias and has a main character complex?
kelnos 11mo ago
Those people you mention may be examples of the exception, not the rule. Certainly many new businesses work out when they are founded by someone from a wealthy family; it would be strange if that was never the case. But maybe it's more common that successful businesses are started by founders coming from more modest means. Page & Brin, and Jobs & Wozniak come to mind (none came from poor families, but they weren't rich either). I'm sure there are many other examples, and those are just the famous ones; there are many successful companies started by people we've never heard of.
- lisbbb 11mo ago
  You really need to be connected and have resources to succeed or the machinery will eat you alive.
leobg 11mo ago
Musk came to Canada with a few hundred dollars to his name. Worked on farms. Never got a loan from his dad, afaik. It’s probably true that he could have somehow gone back to South Africa as a “safety net” if you will, but I believe that would’ve been the last thing he would have wanted. If you’re really poor, you can’t take a plane to another country and start a new life, sure. But out of those people who could, if they scraped their resources together, how many do? This isn’t to blame anyone. I would suppose that the vast majority of people would not want to be Elon Musk. Would not want that kind of life. But for the claim that he is what he is because it was served to him on a silver platter by his family just isn’t supported by any facts.

wisty 11mo ago

What was Musk families net worth? I hear this conspiracy theory that he's was super rich. But owning a mine could mean anything from a basically bankrupt speculator to the De Beers. There's claims he gave Musk $28k ... that's not evena decent college fund.

wnevets 11mo ago
They had this amount of money > As a result of this, the teenage Elon Musk once walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket. His father said: “We were very wealthy. We had so much money at times we couldn’t even close our safe,” adding that one person would have to hold the money in place with another closing the door. “And then there’d still be all these notes sticking out and we’d sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.” [1] [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-made-money-rich-b2212599.html https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-made-money-ric...
- eru 11mo ago
  That seems pretty silly. Why keep your wealth as cash in a safe? (And why not use a fraction of the money to buy a second safe, if you really have to keep it in a safe at home.)
  - prerok 11mo ago
    That was probably just their pocket money.
    - eru 11mo ago
      Well, there might have been some weirdness about South Africa at the time. Perhaps financial institutions had some weird weaknesses.
  - tonyedgecombe 11mo ago
    To keep it away from the tax man.
    - eru 11mo ago
      Maybe. But wouldn't you rather hire a good accountant and lawyer instead of bothering with cash at home?
      - tonyedgecombe 11mo ago
        A good accountant or lawyer would tell you to pay the taxes you can't avoid.
        eru 11mo ago
        The trick is to make as many taxes as possible avoidable.
  - LanceH 11mo ago
    I know nothing about this specific situation, so I'm not speak to that. I am speaking to "why keep your wealth as cash in a safe?" I'm old enough that grandparents lived through the great depression. I know they kept wealth in a safe. A lot of their kids did as well. The grandparents had their gold money taken away, or their cash disappeared in banks. A lot of their kids followed along. Being gen X, Elon has parents/grandparents that lived through the great depression and world war. That along with any other local factors makes keeping wealth in a safe not that unusual.
    - eru 11mo ago
      Elon Musk grew up in South Africa.
  - wnevets 11mo ago
    > That seems pretty silly. Why keep your wealth as cash in a safe? Was it during the apartheid boycotts?
- input_sh 11mo ago
  The pocket emerald story that comes before that "we were very wealthy" line is even more telling. It's missing from that Independent article, but that article's based on this Business Insider interview: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-about-the-familys-casual-attitude-to-wealth-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-abou... > Elon, by his father’s recollection then probably 16 years old, and his brother Kimbal, decided to sell emeralds to Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue in New York – one of the world's most famous jewelers – as his father lay sleeping. "They just walked into Tiffany’s and said, ‘Do you want to buy some emeralds?’" Errol recalled in an interview with Business Insider South Africa. "And they sold two emeralds, one was for $800 and I think the other one was for $1,200." > A few days later the family returned to the store to find that Tiffany was selling the $800 emerald, now set in a ring, for $24,000 -- a markup of 30 times the price Elon had received for the gem. > Errol has used the story as on object lesson in how retail works ever since. He was surprised but not concerned by the incident, Errol says, because money was plentiful. > “We were very wealthy,” says Errol. “We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.” So, selling-emeralds-to-Tiffany's-at-16 rich.
- wisty 11mo ago
  So his dad was so poor he kept his money in a safe ... You can fit maybe 2 million in a safe. Maybe less if it's poorly packed, small denominations, other items in storage (id, etc). A safe full of money is like having an investment property, it's not really a sign of unreal wealth. It's like some 20 year old on TikTok flexing a Rolex with aftermarket "diamonds" - it isn't dirt poor but it's not what you'd exactly call generational wealth. You don't even hear Trump bragging about having a ton of cash - even the crassest most trashy rich person wouldn't brag about a safe full of cash. Half the posters here probably have parents with more assets. Just look at how insanely biased people are here. Elon once allegedly stole $2k worth of emeralds from his dad, and they're gushing over what fabulous wealth that is. $2k is a phone or a laptop. Elon was so madly rich he stole something as valuable as a laptop from his dad, and this is somehow evidence that he's basically a de Beers?
  - wnevets 11mo ago
    I can't tell if this is rage bait or not.
    - wisty 11mo ago
      What do you disagree with? 1. A safe would hold less than $2M. 2. Someone bragging about less than $2 million in assets is not unbelievably rich. 3. People talk about Musk in a way that suggests his parents were extremely rich.
      - SJC_Hacker 11mo ago
        Over $2 million in assets about the time Musk was matriculating would have put in the top 0.1%, e.g. 1 in 1000. That would be fairly rich to me
      - wnevets 11mo ago
        > What do you disagree with? His parents are telling you they were very wealthy and you somehow managed to come to the conclusion that Elon grew up poor. I guarantee you the median American isn't so wealthy their safes are overflowing with cash.
astura 11mo ago
From his dad's Wikipedia page: >His lucrative engineering business took on "large projects such as office buildings, retail complexes, residential subdivisions, and an air force base." He also owned an auto parts store, at least half a share in an emerald mine, and even "one of the biggest houses in Pretoria."[12] His ex-wife Maye's book recalls that at the time of their divorce in 1979, he owned two homes, a yacht, a plane, five luxury cars, and a truck.[13] Elon was 8 in 1979.
- darkwater 11mo ago
  Only 2 homes? What a loser...

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

WalterBright 11mo ago

Musk took low wage jobs when he arrived in the US.

bdangubic 11mo ago
Zuckerberg’s salary today is $1 :)
raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
Is this some type of founders myth? Musk left Canada at 17, went to college in the US and sold is first business in 1999. But I also worked at low minimum wage job at 18 at Radio Shack while living at home with my parents driving the car my parents bought me. I assure you if I have lost my job, it wouldn’t have hurt. I would just spend more time hanging out with my friends and on my $4K Mac setup. Musk was not going to be homeless if he failed.
- WalterBright 11mo ago
  Feel free to read a biography of him. > Musk was not going to be homeless if he failed. Right. He'd just get a job and rent an apartment. I had a friend who started company after company starting in high school. Some were more successful than others, but he never lost his enthusiasm for the next company. The last time I saw him, he was living out of a trailer because he put everything he had into his next company. (Sadly, he passed a few years ago from an accident.) He left behind a large wake, and his memorial service was packed. (He grew up in poverty.)
  - omnicognate 11mo ago
    I'm not sure what point is being made here. AIUI, Musk comes from a wealthy family. Are you saying a biography would say otherwise? I think the point people are making about the low wage jobs is that it's irrelevant. People from wealthy backgrounds take low paid jobs sometimes, so having done so doesn't imply he's a rags-to-riches story.
    - 11mo ago

bear141 11mo ago

You can choose to think that op meant only the most insanely rich billionaires. I thought they meant their actual experiences with peers. Cut out the outliers and be realistic and I think it’s easier to understand the point without the extremism. The range of what people consider success is quite large.

sillyfluke 11mo ago
Yes, it's a bit forced trying to turn someone's anecdotes that spur some food for thought into some kind of a categoric stance. They asked the parent who they were thinking of, a more recent example of an "up and coming" billionaire would be Palmer Luckey, whose life experience seems to be at least consistent with his stance against optionality. Edit: Ref "A lot of my peers in the tech industry do not share this philosophy … They’re always pursuing everything with optionality. ’Oh, I need to be able to raise money from anybody. I need to be able to sell my business in any way. I need to have liquidity in any way. I need to make sure that I’m not closing myself off to future romantic partners. I need to make sure I’ve got my options open. I need to make sure that I’m not going to buy a house and settle down in one place and lock myself down. Oh, having children. I don’t know. Maybe I’m not ready to commit to that path." https://archive.is/BlzA9 https://archive.is/BlzA9
- engineer_22 11mo ago
  Puer Aeternus,,,
an0malous 11mo ago
I chose those examples because they’re well known and public. I asked for counter examples and no one seems to be able to share any.
- kelnos 11mo ago
  I posted some as a reply to one of your other posts. Why do we need well-known, public examples? I think it would be absurd to assert that there are very few successful founders that don't come from wealthy families. (Just as it would be absurd to suggest there are few that do come from wealthy families.)

lo_zamoyski 11mo ago

These are outliers. Think of motivation. Most people who live financially comfortable lives will want little more in the way of wealth when balanced against risk and effort. They also have something to lose. Their circumstances shift the incentives. Now think of the temperaments of people who chase wealth. If they come from money, then the comfort they live in is not going to satisfy them. If they come from financially less than stellar backgrounds, they may be more likely to crave that kind of attainment; money is a kind of unfamiliar blank canvas onto which they can project all sorts of fantastic expectations (most of which are bogus). And unlike the better off, they have less to lose. Add to all this an inferiority complex that can compel compensation behavior. They may have a tougher start financially, but psychologically, they are more compelled by their circumstances than their wealthier counterparts. So we should avoid being reductive. And we should stop reducing “success” to money.

abustamam 11mo ago
I don't think anyone in this particular thread was necessarily reducing or equating success to money, they were merely pointing out examples in which certain folks attained financial success. The parent-most comment was referring to the importance of a safety net in order to get more chances (whether it's risking it to become a business owner, or going back to school, or whatever your definition of success is). And it's true. If you have a good financial safety net then you can take more chances and increase the odds that your next risk will be the one that works out. Of course, the most easily quantifiable definition of success is usually financial, and on and off HN, it's probably the most common definition of success. For me myself, I'm grateful to be doing well financially. I grew up in an upper middle class family. But I still do want to grow my wealth. I am not going to take wild risks to do so, but I'll work hard and use my current wealth wisely to grow it. What will more wealth get me? Financial security, freedom. It'll give my wife and me the freedom to choose if we want to stay at home with the kids. It'll let us easily fund their college, or whatever education or path they decide to pursue. The goal isn't being a billionaire. It's freedom and security. I think that's success for a lot of people, and it usually manifests itself as just having more money because that's the first step. But it's not always the end goal.

granzymes 11mo ago

Bezos’ mom had him at 17, his biological father owned a bike shop, and his mother remarried when Bezos was 4 to a Cuban immigrant who came to the country at 16 and ended up working as a petroleum engineer. They wound up middle class after all that, but I certainly wouldn’t say Bezos came from a “wealthy family”.

mattm 11mo ago
Bezos' parents lent him $250k to start Amazon. The point is that by the time Bezos started Amazon they were wealthy and could provide him this safety net. Not many middle class families would be able to loan their kid that much money.
- granzymes 11mo ago
  That $250k was their life’s savings. They made a huge bet on their son. His mom took night classes while raising him so she could finish her education while working to support a family.
  - skeeter2020 11mo ago
    isn't this an argument against the original post: that the more dice rolls the greater likelihood of success?
  - an0malous 11mo ago
    Do you have a source for that being their life savings? Most of your points have nothing to do with their wealth. Why would it suggest they’re poor if his mom had him at 17 and was taking night classes while raising him? She wasn’t employed, that just sounds like she herself was still able to take risks beyond her means probably because her father was wealthy.
    - kelnos 11mo ago
      Do you have a source for that not being their life savings? It sounds like you're just making assumptions and guesses as well; if you're going to assert Bezos came from wealth in the first place, you have to back that up. Perusing the "early life" section of Bezos' Wikipedia page doesn't suggest to me that he came from money, at least. But I don't see anyone on either side of the argument presenting anything beyond that.

ericmcer 11mo ago

Yeah they aren't like, outlier wealthy though. They all had lawyer/doctor/banker parents. If having your student loans paid off for you is enough, then there are 10s of millions of people in their shoes. Why did they not succeed if that is what it takes?

skeeter2020 11mo ago
>> Why did they not succeed if that is what it takes? short answer: it's might be necessary but not sufficient. Alex Honnold, the rock climber with some pretty spectacular solo / speed ascents was asked why no-one else has free soloed El Cap, replied "it's hard." he spent a lot of time (years) building up to it and finishing other routes, and no one else has taken these first steps yet. He goes on that they may have the talent or disposition, but not the motivation or an experience that pushes them in another direction. His perspective (similar to general outlier success) is others will do it but it takes a bunch of things all coming together, including luck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDTg4P9ZdP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDTg4P9ZdP4
an0malous 11mo ago
I didn’t say they need to be outlier wealthy, I’m disagreeing with the assertion that it just takes focus and grit to be successful. I agree with the initial comment that it has more to do with how many chances you get to take, and being able to take chances throughout your 20’s is a relatively rare and privileged opportunity. Most people need to find gainful employment immediately after college, they can’t take 5-10 years making no money on long shot bets. Where are you getting the figure that there are 10’s of millions of college grads in their 20’s with no debt? There are only 2 million undergraduate grads in the US every year. I think you’re probably off by a couple orders of magnitude.
spixy 11mo ago
Contacts. Bill Gates mother worked with IBM CEO. Without her maybe IBM would choose other company than Microsoft.
- SJC_Hacker 11mo ago

bartread 11mo ago

> Who are you thinking of? It’s pretty clear that @Aurornis is talking about people they know personally. They literally mention that they’re talking about people they grew up with. Whereas you are talking about a completely different group of people: Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk are the survivorship bias set. You’re talking at cross purposes with the person you’re responding to.

izacus 11mo ago
Why would anyone base their debate on "people they know"?! What kind of conversation is worth having with someone who doesn't understand observation bias and has a main character complex?

kelnos 11mo ago

Those people you mention may be examples of the exception, not the rule. Certainly many new businesses work out when they are founded by someone from a wealthy family; it would be strange if that was never the case. But maybe it's more common that successful businesses are started by founders coming from more modest means. Page & Brin, and Jobs & Wozniak come to mind (none came from poor families, but they weren't rich either). I'm sure there are many other examples, and those are just the famous ones; there are many successful companies started by people we've never heard of.

lisbbb 11mo ago
You really need to be connected and have resources to succeed or the machinery will eat you alive.

leobg 11mo ago

Musk came to Canada with a few hundred dollars to his name. Worked on farms. Never got a loan from his dad, afaik. It’s probably true that he could have somehow gone back to South Africa as a “safety net” if you will, but I believe that would’ve been the last thing he would have wanted. If you’re really poor, you can’t take a plane to another country and start a new life, sure. But out of those people who could, if they scraped their resources together, how many do? This isn’t to blame anyone. I would suppose that the vast majority of people would not want to be Elon Musk. Would not want that kind of life. But for the claim that he is what he is because it was served to him on a silver platter by his family just isn’t supported by any facts.