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How to get rich without getting lucky

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Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#131

Post by charlesdm »

Jommi wrote: post #123
charlesdm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has a flipside though. If you do manage to find success (and say, own a profitable business or have an exit), you'll be taxed into oblivion. It might not be the popular opinion on HN, but I would hate that. Make sure to structure things properly from the beginning so that you can leave when appropriate.

I guess it might slow you down from getting surpr super rich, but in the end it's surely worth it.

No. It slows you down just getting rich as well. If I want to make €5 or €10m and retire, it's inefficient to pay a lot of tax if you can legally get around it.

It's one thing to pay on gains you make after you've gotten rich, i.e. if you're making 5% a year on €10m, than on the initial capital you're building up.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#133

Post by Aaargh20318 »

maxerickson wrote: post #110
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. So why criticise people for spending money on consumption when they need it to stay alive.

That's an extremely tiresome interpretation of the comment you replied to. If you give them just the tiniest little benefit of the doubt, it's easy to see that they are talking about the money they had available after meeting their needs and that they probably aren't criticizing people that don't have a lot of such money.

> it's easy to see that they are talking about the money they had available after meeting their needs

And the point was that many people do not have money available after meeting their needs.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#134

Post by charlesdm »

isolli wrote: post #119
charlesdm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has a flipside though. If you do manage to find success (and say, own a profitable business or have an exit), you'll be taxed into oblivion. It might not be the popular opinion on HN, but I would hate that. Make sure to structure things properly from the beginning so that you can leave when appropriate.

Can you provide examples? I can only think of a counter-example: Ingvar Kamprad, the (Swedish) founder of Ikea, and by some accounts at times the richest man on earth.

Literally every businessman who lives in Monaco. Most aren't very well known, however.

If you make sure, for example, your intellectual rights (if we're talking a software company) aren't held in a country with a super high corporate tax rate, that would be a good start.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#135

Post by maxerickson »

tomhoward wrote: post #129
Mononokay wrote: post #2

Naval's always sounded a bit like a Facebook quote bot to me. He reiterates common knowledge in less concise ways than normally said while using the persona of a monk. ...Actually, that can sum up a lot of Tech Twitter.

I once heard PG say something like "It's crazy, but the YC startups that succeeded are the ones who followed our advice. The ones who failed, didn't". He's never claimed there's anything particularly brilliant about his advice. Indeed he's joked that his presence in office hours sessions could be replaced by a 3-line shell script. "Make something people want", "talk to your users", "spend less money than you make"...…

The interesting test is whether anyone can usefully predict "Make something people want".

If no one is predicting that then the biggest thing YC is doing is making lots and lots of deals.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#136

Post by tomhoward »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #42
tomaha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But one important part of their success was to invest their income. I know too many people that use their money to consume. Investing early in your life is what makes the difference. It's very easy to spend it on little things and claim to not have anything to invest.

> I know too many people that use their money to consume. All those dumb poor people wasting their money on food.

The commenter didn't say that.

They were talking about the people (of whom I've been one, earlier in life), who have been privileged enough to have earned a lot of money but wasted it.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#137

Post by maxerickson »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #133
maxerickson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an extremely tiresome interpretation of the comment you replied to. If you give them just the tiniest little benefit of the doubt, it's easy to see that they are talking about the money they had available after meeting their needs and that they probably aren't criticizing people that don't have a lot of such money.

> it's easy to see that they are talking about the money they had available after meeting their needs And the point was that many people do not have money available after meeting their needs.

Yes, I understood your point. My point is that it is tiresome to bring it up anytime and every time someone makes a comment about saving money. They weren't being dismissive, they were replying in context (people that save their way to riches sort of obviously have had money that fits into the 'savable' category).

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#138

Post by stochastic_monk »

akanet wrote: post #111
stochastic_monk wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to have taken on a literal narcissism in the Snap era.

Narcissism and materialism can be very different things

I agree. You could even call this flavor a sort of immaterialism, a preoccupation with what isn't actually real.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#139

Post by tomhoward »

maxerickson wrote: post #135
tomhoward wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once heard PG say something like "It's crazy, but the YC startups that succeeded are the ones who followed our advice. The ones who failed, didn't". He's never claimed there's anything particularly brilliant about his advice. Indeed he's joked that his presence in office hours sessions could be replaced by a 3-line shell script. "Make something people want", "talk to your users", "spend less money than you make"...…

The interesting test is whether anyone can usefully predict "Make something people want". If no one is predicting that then the biggest thing YC is doing is making lots and lots of deals.

What YC tries to predict is whether the founders are capable of making something people want, not whether the product they pitch in the application process is already something people want.

They are just looking for founders who can follow the build+release+test+repeat cycle as quickly and effectively as possible, and their claim is that if founders can do that really well in a large, valuable market, they will find success.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#140

Post by imgabe »

executesorder66 wrote: post #130
imgabe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying people to work for you is unethical?

Some would argue that if you make a profit from it, then yes it is unethical. If worker A makes product P, and you sell product P for $1000. And then you pay worker A $800 for the work, you make $200 profit. Worker A did $1000 worth of work, but only got paid $800. You did $0 worth of work (with regards to actually making P) but you got $200. Hence it is unethical.

That is assuming the raw materials cost $0 and there is no value to assuming the risk of the sales price.

If you pay the worker $800, but it turns out the market only values the widget at $500, does the worker return the difference? Usually not.

If you are not providing any value, why is the worker not just cutting you out of the deal and making and selling widgets directly?

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