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

Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 55 posts

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#31

Post by friend_and_foe »

rr2841 wrote: post #30
friend_and_foe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk has a million dogecoin bounty for anyone who can prove that claim. There are interviews with his dad where his dad says basically he bought some emeralds from an Italian guy who was chiseling them from a rock in the ground. That's a far cry away from an emerald mine fortune, when I think "emerald mine" I think John of God level fortunes, and they used what money they made to move out of South Africa. From my und…

I find entertaining the show of cynicism when Musk himself started the rumour about the emerald mine [0]: > Elon Musk: "... In South Africa, my father had a private plane we’d fly in incredibly dangerous weather and barely make it back. This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father also had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia." Musk's father gave an interview [1] where he explains what the mine business was a…

A private plane is not a private jet, and a sailboat is not the Fulk al Salama. I'd bet the private plane was a little cesna and the "ocean going yacht" was probably a medium sized sailboat or catamaran. Rich? I suppose, but not wealthy. Upper middle class maybe.

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#32

Post by pepa65 »

beardyw wrote: post #24
czechdeveloper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what is difference between a million and a billion? Approximately a billion.

Ah, I remember when a billion really was a billion. These paltry thousand millions are chicken feed. "Previously in British English (but not in American English), the word "billion" referred exclusively to a million millions (1,000,000,000,000). However, this is not common anymore, and the word has been used to mean one thousand million (1,000,000,000) for several decades." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000,000,0…

billion = million x million [bi]

trillion = million x million x million [tri]

This is still the case in Dutch for instance, where 1e9 is a "miljard".

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#33

Post by rewmie »

gnicholas wrote: post #9

> Mike Bezos, Jeff’s adoptive father and a Cuban immigrant who worked as an engineer at Exxon, one of the world’s top oil companies So his "father with money" is a Cuban immigrant? That kind of changes the narrative.

> So his "father with money" is a Cuban immigrant? That kind of changes the narrative.

An Exxon engineer is hardly a homeless begger.

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#34

Post by rewmie »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #31
rr2841 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find entertaining the show of cynicism when Musk himself started the rumour about the emerald mine [0]: > Elon Musk: "... In South Africa, my father had a private plane we’d fly in incredibly dangerous weather and barely make it back. This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father also had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia." Musk's father gave an interview [1] where he explains what the mine business was a…

A private plane is not a private jet, and a sailboat is not the Fulk al Salama. I'd bet the private plane was a little cesna and the "ocean going yacht" was probably a medium sized sailboat or catamaran. Rich? I suppose, but not wealthy. Upper middle class maybe.

> A private plane is not a private jet (...)

https://www.the-sun.com/news/8014711/elon-musk-dad-errol-cha...

Elon Musk stans are something else. The loops they jump through to convince themselves that the teenager who was walking around with emerald from his family's mine in his pockets was not a rich privileged kid are out of this world.

https://www.news24.com/news24/bi-archive/elon-musk-sells-the...

It's perfectly fine if you want to idolize a rich kid who multiplied his family's fortune, but let's keep it grounded.

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#36

Post by rewmie »

mcpackieh wrote: post #5

> Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money Dumb headline, obviously wrong. It may be true for those billionaires but there are many millionaires for which this isn't true. I know single-digit millionaires who ran away from home as teenagers and never had anything to do with their parents again.

> It may be true for those billionaires but there are many millionaires for which this isn't true.

The term "with money" is subjective and open to interpretation, but I don't think that it means "middle-class" either.

Due to inflation, the term "millionaire" today does not convey the same meaning that it did a few years ago. Middle class families with high 5-/low six-digit incomes can aspire to become millionaires by passively saving their salary.

This is definitely what "millionaire" means.

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#37

Post by Turing_Machine »

rewmie wrote: post #33
gnicholas wrote: post #9

> Mike Bezos, Jeff’s adoptive father and a Cuban immigrant who worked as an engineer at Exxon, one of the world’s top oil companies So his "father with money" is a Cuban immigrant? That kind of changes the narrative.

> So his "father with money" is a Cuban immigrant? That kind of changes the narrative. An Exxon engineer is hardly a homeless begger.

It's also hardly a billionaire. Engineers are solidly middle-class.

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#38

Post by Turing_Machine »

whatscooking wrote: post #19
friend_and_foe wrote: post #16

Funny, the only mention of Elon Musk is in the description of the header photo... I wonder, why include him in the photo at all if you're not going to talk about him? Did he have rich parents? So what I'm getting from the article is that these three men lived in middle class households in the 70s, 80s and 90s, a period in America with a strong middle class, and that by today's standards had well off parents, but by t…

Everyone knows Elon Musk’s father owned a emerald mine in Zambia. The only person who denies it is Elon.

Everyone who knows anything at all about mining knows that "owning a mine" (any kind) says nothing whatsoever about the wealth of the owner. It's quite common to put more money into the ground than you ever get back out.

I've known several gold mine owners over the years. To be blunt: none of them had a pot to piss in. Some of them made enough to get by, but that's it. Others had to subsidize their mines by working in town part of the year.

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#39

Post by Turing_Machine »

rewmie wrote: post #34
friend_and_foe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A private plane is not a private jet, and a sailboat is not the Fulk al Salama. I'd bet the private plane was a little cesna and the "ocean going yacht" was probably a medium sized sailboat or catamaran. Rich? I suppose, but not wealthy. Upper middle class maybe.

> A private plane is not a private jet (...) https://www.the-sun.com/news/8014711/elon-musk-dad-errol-cha... Elon Musk stans are something else. The loops they jump through to convince themselves that the teenager who was walking around with emerald from his family's mine in his pockets was not a rich privileged kid are out of this world. https://www.news24.com/news24/bi-archive/elon-musk-sells-the... It's perfectly…

> convince themselves that the teenager who was walking around with emerald from his family's mine in his pockets was not a rich privileged kid

Most emeralds (and other precious stones, too, but especially emeralds) that come out of the ground are essentially worthless.

https://www.amazon.com/Gemhub-Quality-Emerald-Natural-Wrappe...

There you go. Now you, too, can "walk around with emeralds in your pocket". 12 bucks.

Re: Zuckerberg,Bezos,Gates.Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

#40

Post by sharts »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #38
whatscooking wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knows Elon Musk’s father owned a emerald mine in Zambia. The only person who denies it is Elon.

Everyone who knows anything at all about mining knows that "owning a mine" (any kind) says nothing whatsoever about the wealth of the owner. It's quite common to put more money into the ground than you ever get back out. I've known several gold mine owners over the years. To be blunt: none of them had a pot to piss in. Some of them made enough to get by, but that's it. Others had to subsidize their mines by working i…

Takes money to buy mines. Whether that was a good/bad investment isn’t the point.
Post reply on HN