How People Get Rich Now • Hacker News Board

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#231

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #98

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.

> If that weren't the case, the top 100 would still likely be dominated by heirs. Do you believe that because you think that heirs are likely to hold their wealth in cash, bonds or in other assets that haven't been "artificially pushed higher by lower interest rates?" It seems to me that if wealth of any kind is invested well, it's likely to generate exactly those same higher returns; the source of the wealth is kind…

Heirs will probably be diversified. Their returns will be about average. Founders will win bigger and lose bigger, so when you only look at the top top top winners, those outliers will be outlierier. Wider variance means higher highs and lower lows.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#232

Post by offtop5 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

quantumofalpha wrote: post #112

internetslave wrote: post #23

I 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…

Get out of your bubble. There's a whole world outside of Bay Area/NYC, where $150-200k/y is still a batshit crazy amount of money and $1M can last you happily ever after, even with kids. Accumulating $1-2M NW is totally within reach for most employees at US FAANGs after a decade or so of work.

A good friend of mine lives in Asia off 400$ or so a month.

If I was to retire near him I'd be able to make a million last for a very very long time.

Whoever says 200k isn't a lot of money is full of crap. You can live very well off 70k in most of America.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#233

Post by csomar » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #27

eptcyka wrote: post #12

I wonder if it really is easier than ever for the bottom 95% of US citizens (or bottom 95% of the developed western countries) to become rich by starting a business these days.

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…

Back in the 70s-80s, housing was very accessible and jobs were simpler and equally available (now you probably need to move to a hot city). So people could build considerable real-estate equity from being a salaried man.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#234

Post by mariksolo » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

wanderer2323 wrote: post #180

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 is apropos for this forum, but beyond that he is plainly a good writer. I don't know who you consider 'amazing writers across our civilization' -- but whether it is Gracian or Scott Alexander, PG shares one thing with them, namely that his works will be quoted beyond the lifespan of his contemporary readers.

I don't think that merely being a good writer will allow him to be "quoted beyond the lifespan of his contemporary readers." I agree with OP that I really don't see anything special about his writings, compared even with contemporary writers on technology like RMS.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#235

Post by Ericson2314 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

I'm really glad even Hacker news is calling out PG's bullshit now.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#236

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:32 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.

[deleted]

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#237

Post by alistairSH » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

claudiulodro wrote: post #156

alberth wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich != Wealth I think where PG and others are conflating two topics is being Rich vs being Wealthy. You can certainly become Rich working at FAANG (top 1% earner + appreciating stock ... and it's way less risky than other jobs). Where you can become Wealthy starting your own company (super high risk, most likely won't even become "rich" doing it, but you have the potential to create limitless wealth) EDIT: If you're…

The definition of "rich" is "having a great deal of money or assets; wealthy." Seems like Rich == Wealth as far as I can tell. There is definitely a difference between well-off and wealthy, though.

While not a dictionary definition, I've seen "the wealthy" described as the subset of "the rich" where their money is self-sustaining (passive income that spans generations).

By most definitions, many of us on HN are rich, but few of us are wealthy. Most of us still have a day job and rely on that salary to pay bills and save for retirement.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#238

Post by cblconfederate » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

chrisBob wrote: post #113

harshaw wrote: post #32

I 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…

He is saying you are more likely to become a Billionaire by starting a company than by joining a FAANG as an employee. Now that is a 1:1000000 event instead of a 1:5000000 event like it may have been in the past. I will forgive you if you still think it is unlikely. Most people's goal isn't (and shouldn't be) $1B. If your goal is a more reasonable $5M then joining an existing company is still your best bet. I am goin…

What about those billion-dollar companies that never made money but got acquired by FB, MS etc? Their founders did build a company, but if it wasn't for FAANG's insane profitability, which makes the cost of their moat so high, they wouldn't be worth that much. They essentially joined facebook as employees to make their billions.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#239

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

Making economic recommendations based on top 100 richest people is like making dieting reccomendations based on top 100 anorexia sufferers.

Any statistician jnows that your sample neess to be representarive of the population. Define your 'rich' and take a random sample.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#240

Post by OldHand2018 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #54

internetslave wrote: post #23

I 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…

People are getting rich from startups because they’re actually capturing the value of their labor That's not a positive, isn't it? Back in the mid-1990s there were entry-level jobs with a career trajectory, you could drop out of college, join a school district as computer herder, move to a hosting company and get into systems programming and then go to work for Google and Facebook. (Hi Rachel!) That doesn't exist any…

Back in the mid-1990s I paid more for rent than I did for tuition. And the rent was affordable working part time as a code monkey.

If you can manage to max out your 401k contributions from college graduation all the way until retirement, it would be hard not to have at least $4-5 million.

Is that even reasonable right now, for someone that graduates today? I have no idea. But it doesn’t seem like something that would be restricted to tech workers in the Bay Area. It might even be harder to do in the Bay Area than in Des Moines.