How People Get Rich Now • Hacker News Board

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#41

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #15

It's hard to take this article seriously. People get rich now from companies because multiples have been artificially pushed higher by low interest rates. If that weren't the case, the top 100 would still likely be dominated by heirs. All that's changed is the Fed is manipulating the market more now than before, and that's benefiting growth stocks and fund managers of growth stocks... among other things.

True, low interest rates push multiples higher. That's one factor increasing valuations, and it's a factor PG didn't mention.

> If that weren't the case, the top 100 would still likely be dominated by heirs.

Baloney. A (relatively) large number of people would still be getting really rich from startups. They might not be getting quite as rich - say, less rich by a factor of 2 or 4.

> All that's changed is the Fed is manipulating the market more now than before, and that's benefiting growth stocks and fund managers of growth stocks... among other things.

Yes, that has changed. No, that is not all that has changed. Far from it.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#42

Post by norswap » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

I'm not sure what the intent of this post is.

Seemingly, it's to encourage people to start a company, because it's so easy now and you can get rich (look at all these people in the top 100 that got there by starting a company!)

But I'm not sure looking at the top 100 is a compelling argument. That's for the 0.0001%. How does the top 10% do? The top 25%? What about the median outcome?

More than that, what are the trade-offs? (hint: https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/)

Now, I'm all for encouraging people to start their own companies. But this just strikes me as a not very good argument for it. Hell, using similar logic, there is a better case to be made to buy bitcoins and HODL (everyone that bought in 2012 an held made 1000x return!)

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#43

Post by tpmx » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

yan wrote: post #14

tpmx wrote: post #4

What this post looks like on a 40" 4k screen (which btw is an awesome investment for productivity): https://i.imgur.com/gPHT5hI.png

To solve the wide-screen, narrow text problem, I once threw together a demo with a hacked up Chromium/WebKit to create a flowing, multi column view mode that created a long virtual scroll surface and scrolled it like newspaper columns: https://vimeo.com/59463521 . It wasn't super intuitive, but wish a modern browser had this.

I'm kinda sure I saw a pre-chromium Opera browser build do this back in like 2010 or so (maybe it was just a mockup), but like you say, it's not super intuitive. And the scrolling feels weird when you have 2-3 columns moving.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#44

Post by fullshark » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

claudiulodro wrote: post #26

Im curious, if we wait, say, 40 more years, I wonder will the richest people again be heirs (of today's current crop of tech billionaires)? If so, what does that mean for Paul's hypothesis?

I guess the fundamental question is are we at the tail end of the Information age, does it have more room to grow, or is there a new technological shift on the horizon? Paul seems to take it for granted ("how people get rich NOW") that we have room to grow but who knows?

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#45

Post by eloff » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

aqme28 wrote: post #11

I don't think that the top 100 richest people is a good dataset. You can be extremely rich without making it anywhere near that list. While a lot of those top 100 people made it to that list by starting companies, I'm curious how many of them did so by leveraging family or inherited wealth.

To make it on that list, you have to have succeeded at such an extreme outlier level that almost by definition almost everything had to have gone perfectly.

That takes a lot of luck and advantages, such as family advantages. I'm not saying that detracts from what they accomplished, but they can't take all the credit either and it's not reproducible.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#46

Post by UnpossibleJim » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

api wrote: post #22

aqme28 wrote: post #11

I don't think that the top 100 richest people is a good dataset. You can be extremely rich without making it anywhere near that list. While a lot of those top 100 people made it to that list by starting companies, I'm curious how many of them did so by leveraging family or inherited wealth.

I'd be more interested in a study of how people move from lower classes to at least upper middle class.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-decline-of-upward-mobil...

Here's a chart that tries to show the decline of upward mobility in the U.S. with an article that explains it. While, from the reading I did while trying to find this - which was not a huge amount - it does appear down, somewhat, worldwide, it is in a much sharper decline in the U.S. on average. This, of course, is in comparison to European nations. Not a true "worldwide" comparison.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#47

Post by decebalus1 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

> You would think, after having been on the side of labor in its fight with capital for almost two centuries, that the far left would be happy that labor has finally prevailed. But none of them seem to be. You can almost hear them saying "No, no, not that way."

As always, completely removed from reality, ivory tower bullcrap. Only a subset of the workforce has the luxury to be able to start a company. It is cheaper now and for good reason. There's not a whole lot of demand.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#48

Post by Godel_unicode » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #30

codegeek wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barrier to entry is very low these days so technically Yes. At least in theory, someone can start a "tech" business with a couple hundred bucks and shit tons of sweat equity. Back in the 70s-80s, I am sure you needed a lot more capital to start a traditional business. Granted, the 1 person bootstrapped tech biz won't hit the same 1B revenue scale in 10 years but you can become "rich" if your definition of rich is…

You are not talking about the bottom 95%, you are talking about 5% of the bottom 95%: tech-educated programmers & engineers. Now look at how many have the skills to be a CEO and that's about another 5% of that. So in reality you are describing 2.5% of the population.

The population of people who have the skills to be CEO of a <25 person business is far more than 5% of the population. The blue collar sector is filled with such people running e.g. electrical or plumbing companies. Plenty of those people are doing very well for themselves, and now we're talking about how rich is rich.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#49

Post by laurent92 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

claudiulodro wrote: post #26

Im curious, if we wait, say, 40 more years, I wonder will the richest people again be heirs (of today's current crop of tech billionaires)? If so, what does that mean for Paul's hypothesis?

Long-term economic cycles, 70+ years long (Kondratiev cycles if I remember my classes) are linked to deep trends: Petrol appears, we rework all cities around petrol distribution, new opportunities are built, then stagnate then comes global warming and we undo all of this and people grow out of it.

I associate Paul Graham’s single cycle example to the one of petroleum. And the new cycle is of the computer age. And there will be S&Ps and world domination and boring climb-the-ladder careers and the stagnation of the 1990ies, but in 2090.

The bad news is, companies which exist during the ramp-up phase are also the major players until the stagnation phase. That’s why stakes are so high and valuations with dozens of multiples: A share of the right company today is a share in the control of the world in 2060.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#50

Post by giantg2 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

I just wish I was financially independent.

When I buy a Powerball ticket (maybe every other year), I don't hope for the jackpot. I just hope for the million dollar prize.

Edit: why downvote? This is how I feel. This is my only opportunity to make "real money".