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Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

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Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#181

Post by WalterBright »

nugget wrote: post #96
ryandrake wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew someone who was so aggressively proud of their success, having founded and grown a successful business. He'd talk your ear off about how people like him were the ones adding value to society and how unsuccessful people are just lazy and don't try hard enough or don't take enough risks, or are just deadbeats, and how successful, hard working people are punished with taxes--you know, the standard soapbox speech.…

> Going from $0 to $1M is almost impossible--going from $1M to $2M is almost inevitable. I know plenty of people who inherited money and blew it all. Very, very few people, even children from ''rich'' families, have an ''infinite money cushion''. People who come from poverty or communities rampant with discrimination often times have to work harder for opportunities. But hard work is hard work, and there is fierce co…

85% of American millionaires are self-made. Source: "The Millionaire Next Door" book.

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#182

Post by jedmeyers »

CJefferson wrote: post #173
jedmeyers wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point does one have to start to be considered independently successful? - You inherited a lot of wealth and a CTO position at a father's company - Parents gave you money and bought you stuff - Parents gave you a place to live - At least you had one parent - Being an orphan, at least you were born in a first-world country - At least you were born at all, thanks to the medical care in a third world country So,…

I'm not clear what point you are trying to make. No-one is entirely independently successful, but there is a big gap between (for example) someone whose parents give them nothing, and someone whose parents "lend" them $1 million to get started.

It often happens that those parents in addition to $1m also "lend" a vast amount of knowledge of how certain social structures and systems work, and how to operate efficiently within them. They also can serve as a "trust provider", which is a great thing to have when executing business transactions.

If given the opportunity to choose between those things and the money, I would take the "inside knowledge" every time. So even if (for some reason) you decide to limit the amount of money parents can "lend" to their children, it still won't solve the issue of disparity.

p.s. You think Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos got to where she was couple of years ago (before the fiasco unfolded) just because her father, a former Enron employee, gave her some money?

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#183

Post by carapace »

allovera wrote: post #95
cheez wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuuuuck dude.. You elaborated more eloquently than I ever could have. Reality: I've been making more than $200K USD since I was about 27 Mentality: I'm one day away from being homeless. I've been in therapy for 5 years but I've never touched this thought process yet. I think I need to.

>Mentality: I'm one day away from being homeless. Exactly that. A while ago, I had to move. I just collapsed. It brought back too much about being kicked out over and over again. And yet, I can't seem to stop moving. I've lived in four states and two countries and I'm only 25. I think after being homeless so long I am just eternally homeless.

Q: "What's the most important human drive?"

A: "Familiarity."

Sometimes you've just got to fake it til you make it. Since the real world is working okay for you now I feel this advice is appropriate. I've been there. Heck, I'm there now. I'm looking for a new apartment and I have to convince myself it's okay to rent a nice one! LOL

-----

edit: I read your other post talking about PTSD and, yeah, do look into therapy. There are lots of different kinds out there. I recommend going to a few people before settling down with one or two. And even then if they're not helping, keep looking. There is a huge variability in people who hang out a shingle as therapists. Some are magic, others not so much, and it's different for each person who will be able to help them the most. Speaking from experience here. :) Good luck, God bless, and hand in there.

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#184

Post by WalterBright »

ryandrake wrote: post #26
trjordan wrote: post #3

I wish I could remember where I read this, but I once heard it explained to me as this: It's easy to deride the journey of the rich college student: 80-hour internships at Goldman Sachs, unpaid positions in government, etc. But, the things that are done by successful people are hard, as hard as walking a tightrope. The difference is that rich students walk this tightrope over a bed of pillows. Poor students walk it o…

I knew someone who was so aggressively proud of their success, having founded and grown a successful business. He'd talk your ear off about how people like him were the ones adding value to society and how unsuccessful people are just lazy and don't try hard enough or don't take enough risks, or are just deadbeats, and how successful, hard working people are punished with taxes--you know, the standard soapbox speech.…

Wealthy people tend to have different attitudes about money than others, which has a strong influence on their ability to accumulate wealth. This is expounded upon in the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad". It's worth a read, especially for people who are not wealthy but aspire to it.

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#185

Post by mikestew »

ap22213 wrote: post #164
mikestew wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not alone - trust me. Most people don't believe me. It might help if you actually stated where you live. As it stands, you're talking about your girlfriend who "goes to a different school". Which school, and what's her name?

Loudoun county, which is ranked as the highest income county in the US.

Thank you for clarifying. Virginia, and not Tennessee, I take it. What that means is that few, if any, in Loudon County, VA are middle-class. It does not mean that you need $25 million to be middle-class in Loudon County. It means you need to be rich to live in Loudon County.

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#186

Post by PythonicAlpha »

trjordan wrote: post #3

I wish I could remember where I read this, but I once heard it explained to me as this: It's easy to deride the journey of the rich college student: 80-hour internships at Goldman Sachs, unpaid positions in government, etc. But, the things that are done by successful people are hard, as hard as walking a tightrope. The difference is that rich students walk this tightrope over a bed of pillows. Poor students walk it o…

> if you know you have more than one shot, you're more likely to succeed on your first try

That is most likely also one of the reasons, why there are more (successful) Entrepreneurs in the US than in Europe. At least in Germany, when your first startup fails, you are broke and nobody will give you any funding any more (not to forget, that to get your first funding, is much harder in Germany).

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#187

Post by walshemj »

germinalphrase wrote: post #33
ajkjk wrote: post #22

For a year or so I've been keeping an ad hoc record (a text file!), to the best of my ability, of all my financial losses due to personal mistakes - so, moving out of my old apartment a month late was a 1200$ mistake, and dropping and breaking my phone was a 200$ one. I'm also trying to keep track of very risky behavior that didn't become an actual financial loss: driving in NYC during the blizzard last year didn't a…

Another way of thinking about this is the phrase: it's expensive being poor. If you don't have the excess income to absorb these small mistakes/oversights/misfortunes then there are secondary effects (job loss, civil fines, court fees, etc.) that can destroy you financially. Edit: butchered my phrase

No its the Sam Vimes boot theory.

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars.

Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness"

A real word example is my Barbour jacket cost around $600 but it will last 30 years

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#188

Post by sctb »

cmdrfred wrote: post #134

>you can start a business with your $1 million inherited wealth, but it has an extremely high probability of failing without hard work. That's why you don't start a business dummy, you work with a money manager and have him invest it and after 30 years of average market returns you get to brag about how 'successful' and 'hardworking' you are. >I'm not even sure what your point is. GP was pointing out that competition…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12607932 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#189

Post by [deleted] »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #167
mikestew wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not alone - trust me. Most people don't believe me. It might help if you actually stated where you live. As it stands, you're talking about your girlfriend who "goes to a different school". Which school, and what's her name?

I can't reply to ap22213 for some reason, but I agree with everyone else - people are not middle class in Loudon County unless they have more than 25 million. That's clearly wrong, you don't understand what middle class means. Your next door neighbors might all have a billion, and your 15 million feels like not much, but that doesn't make you middle class, you are still rich. In Seattle, there's this area where a bun…

[deleted]

Re: Lost Diamonds: How our current system is failing underprivileged talent

#190

Post by st3v3r »

hueving wrote: post #132
st3v3r wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're talking like the person that was described was talking, I absolutely would take away from their success, especially because they've never had to worry about any of the stuff that someone who doesn't come from means has to worry about. Don't get me wrong; finding success is hard, and whenever someone does find it, it should be celebrated. But those that do find it shouldn't discount the struggles of those w…

>I absolutely would take away from their success Why? Because they are an asshole about it? That doesn't reduce their success in any way. If they have offset the losses of their previous endeavors, they have provided a net gain and it's still a success.

Because they're an asshole about it, and because they're ignoring the pure luck advantages they had which made their success possible. And it doesn't matter if they've offset the losses of their previous tries, they still took multiple tries (in and of itself not a problem), which is something most people don't get.
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