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

How People Get Rich Now

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 941 posts

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#321

Post by darkwizard42 »

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.

Agreed and I'd go so far to say just 5 years at FAANG (assuming you join at a mid-level eng, not L3/L4 fresh university hire) would get you into the $1-2M NW.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#322

Post by troygoode »

true_religion wrote: post #272
lolive wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like RMS is highly respected at the FSF :)

I understand the comparison, but the FSF can exist without RMS. PG on the other hand solely supports HN, I doubt he would continue to pay for a site that vilified him.

This is incorrect. HN is run by Y Combinator; yes, PG started YC, but he retired from YC 7 years ago.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#323

Post by AlchemistCamp »

cupofcoffee wrote: post #202
scottious wrote: post #122

Okay 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.

Where to read more about stories like that?

https://mixergy.com

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#324

Post by benzor »

There's some nuggets of truth in here, but I am disappointed that this article sidesteps what I feel is the most important reason for startup success in 2020: easy and abundant access to cheap capital.

- Interest rates are at all time lows, borrowing is cheap

- The Fed's balance sheet is at an all-time high. The economy is flush with cash, particularly the investor / VC class

- This excess cash creates an (arguably artificial) wealth effect and drives an appetite for risk

- Large unicorn startups that are perpetual money losers continue to operate only because they are effectively subsidized by regular capital raises. Look no further than all the Silicon Valley darlings such as Uber, Netflix, AirBnb, Tesla, and so on. All of them would cease to exist without continued capital injection from secondary share offerings or VC raises

- These companies achieve growth and put pressure on the competition by offering their services below the real cost that would be needed to achieve profit, hence driving huge share price growth

- This share price growth attracts new investment from the momentum-chasing crowd, increasing appetite for subsequent secondaries, and then the cycle repeats

I don't mean to be cynical, but it's hard to see this ending well for some of the nouveau riche. Tech has been a great avenue to riches by offering real innovation in some cases, but the article's error-by-omission really gives the wrong impression.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#325

Post by Wohlf »

internetslave wrote: post #59
curiousllama wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many consultants & I-bankers do you know? You sound like you come from a remarkably entrepreneurial subset of the world. Where I come from, everyone wants to make MD/Partner, ether in law, finance, or consulting. More generally, MBA applications to top schools have been rising for years. Besides, if 10x the median individual income isn't enough outside of SF/NYC, you got bigger problems.

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…

The lowest state median income in the US is Mississippi at $45,000. I can't possibly imagine how someone mismanages their finances so much that $450,000 is not enough to raise a family on.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#326

Post by spaetzleesser »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #37
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?

undoubtedly, unless we have a new revolution like the personal computing/internet revolution that makes the pie bigger and accessible for people, and those types of revolution are things that you can hardly for-see.

"undoubtedly, unless we have a new revolution like the personal computing/internet revolution that makes the pie bigger and accessible for people, and those types of revolution are things that you can hardly for-see. "

It seems the computing revolution lead to a massive concentration of wealth.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#327

Post by TheTrotters »

frongpik wrote: post #209
TheTrotters wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not conspiracy, but an observation that hamburgers, cars, houses and yachts inflate at different rates. The gov inflation concerns hamburgers, but someone's making 200k really needs housing and that inflates much faster.

1. Rents are included in the CPI. 2. This confuses relative price changes with inflation.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#328

Post by Logon90 »

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…

Not exactly desperate, however much pretense we can muster :/

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#329

Post by neilk »

There are a lot of people who have already taken pg to task over the rather thin chain of reasoning (anecdata about the Forbes 100 -> grand societal conclusion)

But what about the initial claim, that inherited wealth now means very little? Tech founders have always come from at least the upper-middle class (I'd say that's roughly where I hail from). But that seems to be trending upwards. Increasingly, "tech" founders have only limited tech skills themselves but hail from a class where they have access to investors, often with a significant cash injection from their own families.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#330

Post by azinman2 »

> If you only look back as far as the mid 20th century, it seems like people getting rich by starting their own companies is a recent phenomenon. But if you look back further, you realize it's actually the default. So what we should expect in the future is more of the same.

First, he pointed to one other point in time. Maybe this is true (although I doubt it), but the argument would benefit from many more data points if you're going to establish that 'startups are the default'.

Secondly, of course future here isn't disambiguated so it's hard to argue with. But past performance is only a guess for future prediction. Given the rise of populism globally, I think we're in for some big big changes at the societal level.

Post reply on HN