Given the massive concentration of capital to a small pool of behemoths that seem to be paying their employees to not start a competitor and the amount of debt being carried around by the majority of public companies, I'd say it's far more likely we're headed towards a period like 1982 but with new players than we are heading towards the 2000s and 2010s again. Companies saddled in debt will have a hard time innovating but their market presence is worth buying.
How People Get Rich Now
121–130 of 941 posts
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#122Okay yeah, but that's like "Forbes 400" level rich, which is almost nobody. What about "acquire $10M by 50 years old" level of wealth? To me, that seems like a much more interesting story because it captures many more people.
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#123I don't want to derail this too much with personal anecdotes, but I suspect you are much more likely to build wealth with the more established tech companies - and that wealth is "rich enough". Maybe I am just unlucky or unskilled, but I spent roughly 20 years working at startups or innovation labs. I was "close" to some big events where I could have made big $$ but made 0. Both at my own startup and being at early s…
I think the consolidation thing he describes is happening again, and we are again entering a period like the 60s where access to the markets is limited by a few small, impenetrable companies, and the only meaningful path to wealth will be working at those companies.
I really hope I'm wrong, but the death of the web and the rise of the censored, anticompetitive app stores seems to be the writing on the wall.
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#124I 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 agree. A rich individual can give their child $0 in inheritance but one introduction, referral or diner party later and they could be set for life. In between this scenario, and the other (handed money) there are countless scenarios that make conclusions very cloudy.
> A rich individual can give their child $0 in inheritance but one introduction, referral or diner party later and they could be set for life.
It's a mighty big leap to go from a single intro to "set for life."
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who's the tech guy in the life of Brian? As in, what part of the movie are you referring to?
I think he means he's the tech equivalent. As in, "he was near many historical events, but not the focus or beneficiary of them"
That also sounds a lot like Forrest Gump :)
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#126I am skeptical of any "top X wealthiest" lists especially for an analysis like this which claims that people are no longer getting rich through inherited wealth. Inequality has gone up a lot since the 1980s and to me a smart person who inherits wealth is not going to flaunt it and probably not going to want to be in any kind of Forbes list. There are plenty of ways to move wealth off of your personal ledger while keeping it in the family, ways that don't even count as "hiding" and I just know casually as a peasant who will never encounter a single one: foundations, generation-skipping trusts, CLATs (maybe the "charity" is your foundation!).
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#127I'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 trad…
Pg looking at the top 100 people and giving his essay the heading "How People Get Rich Now", makes for a very distorted definition of "rich". How many hundreds of millions or billions does it take to be rich in his eyes? When argumenting based on statistics, labeling of the graph or text is where the ideology really shines through.
I think the relevant part here is the discussion of the Gini coefficient.
There are those who argue that the increase in the Gini coefficient (i.e. increase in inequality of wealth or income distribution) means that the U.S. is diverging from its historical pattern of more equal wealth/income distribution and that this must be addressed.
Pg's counterargument is that this is actually mean-reversion, and that the comparanda are actually divergent.
This is somewhat important as it goes to the question of whether Gini coefficients tell us what they're relied on for, what a "good number" is, and if we do decide on a good number what the impact of the required policy changes would be.
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#128It's a classic PG article. Many true facts in there, lots of good analysis with just a few questionable claims thrown in here and there. At the end, there's a massive claim that isn't fully stated but implied. "Of course the Gini coefficient is increasing" translated means "income inequality is not a problem". Firstly, Gini coefficient is based on income, not wealth. That isn't stated clearly. Secondly, there's absol…
It’s probably rich man guilt, plus some attempt at rationalization through cherry picked facts and data.. Also why I think bill gates >>> pg
>It’s probably rich man guilt
it's hilarious to me how so many talking heads think the solution to guilt is more speech instead of praxis. you feel guilty about all of your wealth? give large sums of it away. charity works wonders for the guilty conscience (speaking from experience here). but that's unthinkable so they just go on engaging in this kind of sophistry. lays bare that they're not actually trying to cure their guilt but justify themselves.
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#129I think there’s a different reason, companies just aren’t paying enough. Wages, even at 150-200k just really aren’t that much. 200k now is a lot less than 200k in 2010. The younger generation intuitively knows this. I don’t know anyone jockeying to climb the corporate ladder, and my social circle spans Stanford grads to no college degree at all. People are starting businesses because working for a corporation day in…
Inflation data: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2010?amount=1 . I don't think that a 20% difference means 200K is a lot less. It's a bit less.
Inflation measurements should be tied to location because housing costs vary dramatically and are a huge proportion of expenditure for most people.
Re: How People Get Rich Now
#130It's a classic PG article. Many true facts in there, lots of good analysis with just a few questionable claims thrown in here and there. At the end, there's a massive claim that isn't fully stated but implied. "Of course the Gini coefficient is increasing" translated means "income inequality is not a problem". Firstly, Gini coefficient is based on income, not wealth. That isn't stated clearly. Secondly, there's absol…
Add to that that tech companies concentrate wealth line never before. Airbnb takes a cut of transactions not only around the US but across the world. Not everyone works in the Bay Area, but how many of the founders, early employees, and VCs do? The ones who really make massive wealth? Not 100%, but most. Same with Stripe, the same with Facebook, Google, etc. we’re pulling tremendous wealth into a small area, with technology that can scale tremendously large businesses with fewer people.
This isn’t to say that, for example, wealth from finance companies doesn’t centralize in New York and London. That’s bad too. It’s not to say that good things don’t come from these companies (though Facebook seems to be a net negative for humanity.)
But this level of wealth concentration and inequality is detrimental to the fabric of a society. We’re not better off, we’re not more innovative, we’re not healthier or more cohesive or happier when this happens.