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There is not much chance of being a millionaire plumber any time soon especially not after a couple of years work.

by rythie 17y ago

MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
There's not much chance of being a tech millionaire, either. Much more likely that you end up poorer than the plumber. But hey, I'm still working on my startup, so I guess that just means I'm dumb.
tptacek 17y ago
I think you're probably wrong. Plumbing scales like any services business: you stop being able to manage your inbounds, so you hire another plumber who makes less than you. Repeat N times. At some point, you're making enough off the top of all the plumbing work to stop doing plumbing; now you're a full-time business manager. You brand, promote, and scale --- by franchising, hiring more managers, partnering, or securing large contracts. Somewhere in the middle back there, you became a millionaire. What is also probably true is that it is very hard to go out of business as a freelance plumber. It is very easy to go bust as a tech entrepreneur. The flip side of that: on a steady income, the plumber gets more opportunities to grow her business than the tech entrepreneur --- she can stay in business, turning different knobs, indefinitely. You hope that the tech entrepreneur's individual opportunities are much more valuable, but that depends, doesn't it? There's also the classic factoid that most millionaires got there not by striking gold, but by managing their money well. Be careful about Geek Exceptionalism. It will burn you. People excelled in business long before there was an Internet.
- rythie 17y ago
  My point was that it is possible to become a tech millionaire in a couple of years - this is of course unlikely - but there are many examples of people doing this. It's almost impossible to become a millionaire in a couple of years as a plumber. Whilst like you can do the process you point out, it's likely to take 10+ years to do that. You could also do this same process as a tech consultant and then grow your consultancy business the same way - but that wasn't my point - that's all. People after all play the lottery every week - though on average they would be better off putting that money in a savings account and waiting 30-40 years...
Silhouette 17y ago
There is not much chance of being a millionaire software developer any time soon either, especially not after a couple of years' work. The fact that a handful (almost literally) of businesses have achieved this, and quite a few more make a modest profit in a reasonable time, does not by any stretch mean that these "successes" are going to do the same thing. The whole point of the complaint here is that most of those "successes" won't actually be successful, ever. It's just that in this business, the one that does make it will make it big. But the others will still fail.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
bmelton 17y ago
Chemed, the parent company of Roto-Rooter, is trading at $42 a share and has a market cap of $944.82M.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

There is not much chance of being a millionaire plumber any time soon especially not after a couple of years work.

by rythie 17y ago

There is not much chance of being a millionaire plumber any time soon especially not after a couple of years work.

There's not much chance of being a tech millionaire, either. Much more likely that you end up poorer than the plumber. But hey, I'm still working on my startup, so I guess that just means I'm dumb.

tptacek 17y ago

I think you're probably wrong. Plumbing scales like any services business: you stop being able to manage your inbounds, so you hire another plumber who makes less than you. Repeat N times. At some point, you're making enough off the top of all the plumbing work to stop doing plumbing; now you're a full-time business manager. You brand, promote, and scale --- by franchising, hiring more managers, partnering, or securing large contracts. Somewhere in the middle back there, you became a millionaire. What is also probably true is that it is very hard to go out of business as a freelance plumber. It is very easy to go bust as a tech entrepreneur. The flip side of that: on a steady income, the plumber gets more opportunities to grow her business than the tech entrepreneur --- she can stay in business, turning different knobs, indefinitely. You hope that the tech entrepreneur's individual opportunities are much more valuable, but that depends, doesn't it? There's also the classic factoid that most millionaires got there not by striking gold, but by managing their money well. Be careful about Geek Exceptionalism. It will burn you. People excelled in business long before there was an Internet.

rythie 17y ago
My point was that it is possible to become a tech millionaire in a couple of years - this is of course unlikely - but there are many examples of people doing this. It's almost impossible to become a millionaire in a couple of years as a plumber. Whilst like you can do the process you point out, it's likely to take 10+ years to do that. You could also do this same process as a tech consultant and then grow your consultancy business the same way - but that wasn't my point - that's all. People after all play the lottery every week - though on average they would be better off putting that money in a savings account and waiting 30-40 years...

Silhouette 17y ago

There is not much chance of being a millionaire software developer any time soon either, especially not after a couple of years' work. The fact that a handful (almost literally) of businesses have achieved this, and quite a few more make a modest profit in a reasonable time, does not by any stretch mean that these "successes" are going to do the same thing. The whole point of the complaint here is that most of those "successes" won't actually be successful, ever. It's just that in this business, the one that does make it will make it big. But the others will still fail.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

bmelton 17y ago

Chemed, the parent company of Roto-Rooter, is trading at $42 a share and has a market cap of $944.82M.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]