Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to get rich without getting lucky

threadreaderapp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 527 posts

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#171

Post by snarf21 »

siberianbear wrote: post #97

I got rich in Silicon Valley from my equity compensation. I bounced around various companies and startups. Two of them were successful and had public offerings. Of those two, one was spectacularly successful. Sure, luck played a role. But my pure grit and tenacity also played a role. Taking on hard bugs and solving them played a role: I solved a lot of hard bugs that others couldn't solve. Spending Saturday afternoon…

Not saying you aren't talented or hardworking but this is strictly survivorship bias. I would bet that there are other people who worked even harder than you but didn't get rich due to something outside their control. It also seems like you are smart enough to not endlessly chase even more and be happy with the largesse you already have so kudos to you for that.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#172

Post by sershe »

keiferski wrote: post #33

I’m going to take a contrarian view and say: figure out why you want to be rich, first. For most people, money is a proxy for respect, status, power, security, social skills, romantic attraction from others, free time, or otherwise. If you can ignore the constant “only rich people are meaningful human beings” message that is blared 24/7 from western culture, you might find that it’s easier to just go after what you w…

To start, basically regardless of a person, money is time (at a certain standard of living). Too many people internalized working for money as something expected and/or inevitable... I'm not saying it's not normal, or unfair or bad; it's simply something you put up with, like driving - if your car drove itself, you'd never drive except perhaps for fun occasionally.

Even if you love your job and would do it if you were wealthy, it's still the same analogy... it's much better to go drive from A to B for fun every day you want, than to have to drive from A to B for work every day. In fact, thinking of my own situation, I like my job and I like to code in my free time... but both being burned out occasionally and just having less free time means I do much less of the latter than I want to. So instead of writing some code I find interesting I have to fix somebody's legacy systems at work... or even create something nice at work, but less interesting to me (although more commercially viable, obviously) than what I would do otherwise.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#173

Post by freehunter »

lustig wrote: post #147
jerguismi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Live in country which has generous welfare system (scandinavian countries). Here I think people have all the basic needs pretty much covered. You can only get your things messed up if you get hooked up on drugs or alcohol. Though to me living here it seems that people are still all the time complaining and demanding more and more, though we have more safety nets than about any other place on earth.

Not sure I'm reading you right, but here are my two cents. Also living in Scandinavia and I would disagree with this advice. To be dependent on the welfare system is not exactly being free and have security. Like the Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson said: "One who is in debt is not free". And living off of the welfare system is in my view to be indebted to society. I would not be able to shake that feeling if I w…

While those are valid points, I don't think the idea is "plan to live off the welfare system" but rather "take the risks and try something new", because if you fail you have a safety net to catch you and help you get back up again.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#174

Post by rc_hadoken »

afpx wrote: post #114
jacquesm wrote: post #8

I know very few people that got rich without getting lucky and none of them would have been rich if they had followed this list. The majority of them simply went into finance, consulting or real estate at a young age and invested their income smartly (retrospectively!). After the first million rolls in if you're young enough compound returns will take care of the rest if you can postpone altering your life-style.

Another strategy I’ve seen work very well: Find out where high-status or wealthy people congregate for recreation. Pay close attention to their culture, mannerisms, language, and dress. Practice emulating them until sufficiently skilled. Frequent the same places as them until some begin to recognize you and believe you are one of them. Then, make them actually enjoy your company. In modern times, this would probably…

Isn't the marriage strategy primarily possible for the opposite gender..the prettier one that is.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#175

Post by andrewflnr »

jabbaker wrote: post #104
trevyn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay people to coach you and to practice with in a low-stress environment. Interestingly, in this same way, money can also buy happiness, through happiness coaching. :)

I've been interested in finding some kind of approach to practice my social skills in a safe environment, what services offer something like that?

Meetup.com. Seriously. A public meetup is probably used to getting the occasional random awkward person, and may have introductions built into its format. I've had good luck with smallish ones, anyway.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#176

Post by Someone1234 »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #158

The highest probability for success for the 'everyday person': - Earn as much as you can from your own work. Take a 2nd job, change to a higher paying job, ask for more responsibility and a raise at your current job, go back to school for a more lucrative degree, ... - Spend much less than you earn. Economize, share an apartment, buy an inexpensive car, shop at Trader Joe's and Costco, .... - Learn how to invest. Thi…

> shop at Trader Joe's and Costco

Huh? Was that trying to say save money at the supermarket? Because those are two stores I don't associate with saving money, they're stores that offer premium products at reasonable prices, but they aren't going to compete with actual discount retailers.

It is just really odd examples/usage in that context...

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#177

Post by eswat »

pc86 wrote: post #120
whatshisface wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a list of reasons that "enlightened" (i.e. not scrooge) people would want to be rich: - The ability to secure the best medical care for yourself and your family in a country where this takes money to do. - The ability to walk away from abusive employment relationships without a second thought or any stress. - The ability to engage in high-level economic actions, the kind that aren't designed for your failure.…

Assuming that "rich" means "don't need to work at all, for the rest of your life, to keep a roof over your head and food on your table," none of what you listed require being rich. > The ability to secure the best medical care for yourself and your family in a country where this takes money to do. I can only speak to the US but this is much more an insurance issue than a wealth issue. When I made $30k a year I had a…

> This is so esoteric it's hard to even know what you're trying to say here. I'm sure you could find plenty of people with $10+ million net worths who feel beholden to act a certain way in the interests of certain people.

I think with OP is trying to say is that more money means more leverage – not in the credit sense – to only feel beholden to people that have interests that align with yours (family, peers, mentors) and less with those that don’t (boss, managers or people who know how to manipulate your behaviour by using lack of money as a tool).

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#178

Post by sokoloff »

rc_hadoken wrote: post #174
afpx wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another strategy I’ve seen work very well: Find out where high-status or wealthy people congregate for recreation. Pay close attention to their culture, mannerisms, language, and dress. Practice emulating them until sufficiently skilled. Frequent the same places as them until some begin to recognize you and believe you are one of them. Then, make them actually enjoy your company. In modern times, this would probably…

Isn't the marriage strategy primarily possible for the opposite gender..the prettier one that is.

Even if this were only (or primarily) available to one gender, what makes you conclude that that gender is "the opposite gender" in the context of GP's post?

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#179

Post by thebigspacefuck »

alanfranz wrote: post #105
davedx wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put as much of your monthly income into a Vanguard fund as you can afford. Most of my money is in this one: https://americas.vanguard.com/institutional/mvc/detail/mf/ov... You might want to put some into a fund that comprises bonds, though they've performed poorly (for my investments) in recent years. If you're young ( Also: this is a long play. Leave it there.

All those indexed funds suggestions are biased by the fact that the stock market, overall, has increased in value OVER TIME: http://www.macrotrends.net/1319/dow-jones-100-year-historica... Remember, the stock market does not create money, it's not a fundamental advancement for humanity. That just means that more people poured money into stocks, rather than other investments or savings. There's absolutely, ABSOLUTELY…

A stock is a piece of a company. That company should be creating value and that value should be worth money, maybe revenue or assets. The price of a company goes up because it is either worth more today than it was yesterday or people believe it will be worth more tomorrow than it is today. Usually people that own a company are trying to create more and more value. It's human nature bubbling up to the top. Why would the stock market suddenly stop reflecting this value growth for absolutely no reason?

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#180

Post by lustig »

freehunter wrote: post #173
lustig wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I'm reading you right, but here are my two cents. Also living in Scandinavia and I would disagree with this advice. To be dependent on the welfare system is not exactly being free and have security. Like the Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson said: "One who is in debt is not free". And living off of the welfare system is in my view to be indebted to society. I would not be able to shake that feeling if I w…

While those are valid points, I don't think the idea is "plan to live off the welfare system" but rather "take the risks and try something new", because if you fail you have a safety net to catch you and help you get back up again.

Totally agree and I would argue that there even is financial gain for society in letting people take such risks. Maybe I was kicking at an open door, but my point was that there, in my opinion, does not exist a huge incentive to misuse the welfare system voluntarily.
Post reply on HN