How People Get Rich Now • Hacker News Board

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#191

Post by uoaei » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #164

nindalf wrote: post #71

It'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…

> "Of course the Gini coefficient is increasing" translated means "income inequality is not a problem". The book "The Great Leveler" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31951505-the-great-level... is probably the most comprehensive dive into history of inequality, and arrives at a fairly unexciting conclusion that periods of great inequality are correlated with significant economic growth (usually related to advances…

That would seem to indicate that Goodhart's Law is in effect and not much more. At least, not until you demonstrate an analysis of quality of life during those same periods.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#192

Post by grenoire » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #71

It'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…

pg has been touting the statistics he's pulling out in here for a while on Twitter. I think he read these somewhere and started digging a bit more into it, constructed a narrative, and wrote an essay.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#193

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #71

It'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…

[deleted]

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#194

Post by david927 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

domk wrote: post #155

This essay feels really dishonest. It tries to simplify the vastly complex problem of income inequality, on which there is a sea of existing, detailed research, into a simple "it's easier to start companies now" argument. And it doesn't even explore that argument in that much depth. What about bottom incomes? Why have those barely increased in real terms in the last 30 years, while the top 1% of incomes has been shoo…

It's not just dishonest -- it's gross. Paul needs to spend less time on yachts. Being a mouthpiece to try to find a morality in increasing income inequality, when so many are suffering, more each year, is simply vile.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#195

Post by iur12 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #160

WhompingWindows wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham's articles always shoot immediately up to the top of HN, but I agree with you, they're generally cursory and pithy thoughts which don't convince my skeptical mind. I don't know, can someone explain why his work is so popular? Think of all the amazing writers across our civilization whose work is linkable, and we're worshipping these decent but not amazing blog posts?

PG's recent articles have changed from what they used to be. Recently (last few years) there is a dramatic change towards defending riches, logical fallacies to explain why being rich is okay, a lot of focus on wealth and how to get it and why it's okay. A lot less technically interesting than he used to post. I used to send Startup=Growth to everyone I knew. I think people are used to high-quality content from PG an…

This isn’t a surprise. The religion that formed here hanging off his every word subscribed to it to get rich, just like he started YC to get rich. Now he’s happily rich, barely even looks in the mirror at these adherents that he left behind, and is writing for his new friends who are also rich. It was always pointless snake oil but the Sand Hill Greed here made everyone overlook that because maybe, just maybe, the key to get into YC and skip the bread line was buried in the ninth paragraph of some polemic from a guy who figured out retail in Lisp and somehow convinced a greed-seeking generation of hackers that he had all the answers.

I’ll take my -4 for hitting close to home. The grayer I get — silencing unpopular ideas by making them grayer was his idea too — the more confident I’m right. We stopped telling you folks you were following someone who only cared about your impact on his RoI because that sort of unwashed heathen isn’t welcome here. Paul Graham, YC, and this creation of his on which we speak now has done more to distort and destroy any foundation of computing remotely paying attention to making the world better than almost anything before it, and while I’m happy to see people finally figuring out that it just might be bullshit, it’s a bit too late.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#196

Post by paconbork » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

DC1350 wrote: post #133

dudeman13 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just how bad at finances are you and people around you if 150k just really isn't that much? That literally places you amongst the richest 1%. Not metaphorically, literally. A couple of years worth of saving is enough to give you passive income to never need to work again for food or shelter.

$150k is not even enough to buy a small home near your workplace in a lot of cities. Janitors had better living conditions 50 years ago than $150k earners do today

There's plenty of cities that aren't NYC/SF/LA

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#197

Post by closeparen » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #71

It'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…

These takes freak people out because we want to think of anti-inequality as a virtuous, prosocial belief. But a commitment to hold down inequality is a commitment to prevent the creation of value.

I don’t think it’s controversial to skim the top of the creation of value / rise in inequality to fund services that people need. But as long as a founder’s share of his value creation is greater than the share accruing to the homeless person down the street, his enterprise is still promoting inequality. From an inequality frame, even with a 99% tax rate it ought to be stopped. There are more than 99 other Americans; the founder’s share is still outsized.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#198

Post by anon_tor_12345 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #189

anon_tor_12345 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 t…

The kind of people who use the word "praxis" don't end up having good praxis 99% of the time.

not sure what this means since i'm not a native english speaker - i understand praxis to mean something that you do instead of something that you say.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#199

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

TheTrotters wrote: post #162

bondarchuk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is the government inflation, which is considered by some to be fake. Shadowstats [1] says inflation would be about 5%/year if we use the same methodology as in 1990, which gives about 60% over 10 years, i.e. you'd have to make 320k now. I'm just eyeballing the chart but if we use the 1980 method (~7% a year) it's almost 100% (i.e. you'd have to make 400k now). For another example, Dow Jones with dividends re…

Well, yes, if you accept some official-inflation-is-fake conspiracy theory as a premise you can reach many interesting conclusions.

Its not fit for purpose, just like the fact that we celebrate increasing GDP while life expectancy has been stagnant or declining

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#200

Post by jkubicek » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #86

internetslave wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in investment research in NYC. So I know those types, but the vibe was the same. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but a lot of people I know actually have had startup success. I know a few people that ended up making over 25 million by 30. None of them made it in law or finance, and none of them ever wanted to continue their finance career. 10x the median income just isn’t that much. If you have three kids, mone…

"...because they’re actually getting paid what they produced." Do they really though? That's really the owners getting paid that, not all the workers. And a lot of that is really valued on the potential rather than what was actually produced to that point. "10x the median income just isn’t that much. If you have three kids, money is still tight." That's about $400k, right? That seems like an insane amount of money (I…

It is an insane amount of money even in the Bay Area. It's more than enough to support a large family living a very comfortable lifestyle while also saving significantly for retirement. I'm not sure what the grandparent poster is on about.