How People Get Rich Now • Hacker News Board

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#331

Post by ravenstine » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

ncann wrote: post #279

lolive wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like RMS is highly respected at the FSF :)

I love RMS but unfortunately his skepticism doesn't get treated well by the vocal mass. These days people like to view things in a very black and white manner and if you dare to express your skepticism in a topic that is considered clear cut by the mass you get ostracized.

I liked it better when people were religious towards philosophy and universal metaphysics rather than towards technology and science. Now that traditional religion has been in decline for some time now, people have transitioned the concept of orthodoxy towards systems that are antithetical to it. This is nothing new, as there's long been a level of orthodoxy within technology groups, academia, and so forth, but now it's actual heresy to be skeptical towards anything authoritative, especially if that skepticism stems from one's own intuition.

Inversely, the "skeptics" behave so skeptically towards anything contrary their views that it has the effect of making them hardly skeptical in the first place. I'm not even talking about Stallman's form of skepticism, but what I deem "pop skepticism" that's permeated the mainstream narrative. If one is so skeptical that they are potentially missing out on critical new information, that's not actual skepticism. It's a stroke of the ego for someone too insecure to be wrong about anything. This is especially true when the evidence in front of them is sound and they refuse to consider it.

We are living in an intellectual decline. A true skeptic can't have any sort of controversial opinion without being socially burned at the stake.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#332

Post by gen220 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #224

VBprogrammer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a pretty low bar for inherited wealth. Simply having a family who is able to support you if everything goes pair shaped (maybe as little as letting you live in your childhood bedroom for little or no rent) gives you a huge advantage over someone who isn't in that position. Having parents who are able to lend / invest / gift modest sums of money is yet another step up the ladder. All the way up to having pare…

I started working full time at 15 to keep the roof over our families head after my mothers cancer diagnosis. Until the early death of both my parents I had an anti-safety net, I can vouch that people underestimate the soul crushing nature of real poverty. My own congenital heart defects cost me many surgeries, procedures and money. Thank goodness for medicaid for children, I would probably be dead without it. I have…

Speaking as someone with a not dissimilar background to yourself, and happening to have friends in similar circumstances.

You might want to consider what it is, exactly, that you want out of your career.

You already are in a position to give your children a 10x better life, if that’s something that drives you (this is a common denominator for a lot of people).

The stress of chasing the 100x and the fear of the 0x, without connections and an infinite runway, might make you a 10x worse partner, parent, friend, etc. and you end up losing the things you were trying to secure.

Again I don’t know you or what drives you, but just wanted to share this idea in case you hadn’t considered it before.

Escaping poverty into 1% of income is a huge accomplishment that can never be diminished, from my humble armchair you don’t need to prove anything more to people. You’ve made it.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#333

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #221

ed312 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of living has gone absolutely through the roof, and shows no signs of stopping. That's, least in the northeast, the main reason $400k sounds rich but for a family of 4, with a $5k/mo mortgage, child care, etc. it really isn't.

I'm in the northeast, make under $100k, and support my family. $400k is in the top 10% of earners. $5k per month is about a $1M mortgage, which is on the high side, right?

$1M is on the high side for SFHs in the Boston area, $1M will get you a 2BR condo in the Bay Area.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#334

Post by darkwizard42 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #177

> There were no fund managers among the 100 richest Americans in 1982. Hedge funds and private equity firms existed in 1982, but none of their founders were rich enough yet to make it into the top 100. Two things changed: fund managers discovered new ways to generate high returns, and more investors were willing to trust them with their money. PG brushes past this to talk about tech company founders, but I thought th…

To be fair, nothing stops hedge fund management from doing this. Most funds cannot justify a "2 and 20" fee structure right off the bat. However, there is a certain bias after having some track record of success to charge that fee structure (or more) as a way to signal you are a "big dog" fund to invest in. Does a private university need to have a list price of $75K a year? No, but they do this to signal they are "elite" (even if 80% of their students get financial aid and never pay that list price).

Newer funds always start with a lower fee on AUM and sometimes have more creative fees on top of profits.

My point on universities is largely grounded in my experience at Carnegie Mellon which acknowledged they were going to just start charging more to make themselves more elite (and while some of that money did go back into making the programs better, a lot did not) and it worked...

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#335

Post by ant6n » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

labatyd wrote: post #19

mempko wrote: post #10

Mr Graham writes "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. " Unfortunately Mr. Graham has an outdated view about the "far left". I recommend anyone interested in what a modern "far left" looks like learn about Richard Wolff and the Democracy at Work movement. A startup in a garage wher…

Wouldn’t that just be “the left” with “the far left” reserved for MAP (minor attracted persons gag), ANTIFA, weather underground, etc type organizations that have their hopes invested in the left but see no support from the actual party.

What’s that actual party that’s left?

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#336

Post by jdminhbg » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

anon_tor_12345 wrote: post #198

Der_Einzige wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In standard American English, 'praxis' is a Marxist shibboleth. For a non-loaded term, you can just use 'practice.'

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#337

Post by troygoode » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #73

> It's easier now to start and grow a company than it has ever been. That means more people start them, that those who do get better terms from investors, and that the resulting companies become more valuable. This may be a quibble, because I think Paul Graham really means a certain type of high-growth startup in mind when he says "start a company". But the rate of new business formation in the US has fallen off a cl…

He specifically addresses this in footnote [3].

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#338

Post by layoutIfNeeded » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

iur12 wrote: post #195

cryptoz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ke…

I'm kind of a contrarian myself, and what you've said resonates with me a lot. Take my upvote!

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#339

Post by 1001101 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:03 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.

The Fed funds rate was 21.5% in June 1982. Negative real rates in 2020. Equity models that discount future earnings to a risk-free rate are going to spit out significantly different numbers in each regime.

Re: How People Get Rich Now

#340

Post by sjg007 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #123

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…

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.

This is exactly why we antitrust enforcement. It's not an easy problem to solve though.