How to earn a billion dollars

Post by wnevets » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

AdamN wrote: post #124

She meant impossible in that one doesn't earn a billion dollars through work alone. The only way to get there is to set up a structure that extracts a billion dollars from a market (usually by building a structure that's more efficient but also generates externalities that are not borne by the person getting the billion dollars). pg's reading of it is so blunt and misrepresentative that I'm nervous about what kind of…

Post by saghm » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

blitzar wrote: post #137

blfr wrote: post #23

But the accounting difference is real. It is virtually impossible to earn a billion dollars. What is possible but still difficult is to create something worth a billion dollars which you can then sell if you choose so. And to the people criticizing, this is cheating. To them, a billion dollars enterprise is not possible without the exploitation of employees, customers, or at least the environment. Also, the most impo…

Having to pay a fat wedge of tax every year on what you "earn" sucks a lot of the life out of the compounding effect.

Post by twoodfin » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

cyanydeez wrote: post #141

TheTaytay wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phrase “extract” betrays a fundamental disagreement with what Paul is saying. (Externalities does so again) It assumes a zero-sum game where the job is to shift money from one person to another. Value, and thus money/wealth can be created. Literally. You are saying, in different words, that no one can do it “honestly”. He is saying one can.

no one is doing it honestly in the disparity musk isnt a trillionaire because his assets would equate to physical product. his valuation is an inflated target of market manipulation. when you add up all the physical goods in the world that directly benefit people, that comes nowhere near these valuations. and externalities are one way wealth is taken from the environment. then theyre parlayed.

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

echoangle wrote: post #56

zozbot234 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only viable alternative is that nobody gets to start their business rather than some idealized best case of everyone getting a chance of it, then yes, it's probably fair.

I don’t think the only options are the current way or that nobody is allowed to start companies. Im not from the US so I’m probably not doing a good job at the devils advocate thing but I could imagine that you just tax the people that start the business so they still get some healthy personal wealth by redistributing the truly extreme wealth back to the workers/society. There’s probably some motivation problem to gr…

Post by groundzeros2015 » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

d_burfoot wrote: post #192

There's a kind of Efficient Market Hypothesis of career advice that I wish PG took better notice of. If a career path (e.g. startup founder) outperforms at time T1, then this fact will diffuse quickly throughout society, causing the path to become overcrowded, which pushes down the average performance. So at time T2 the path will no longer outperform. This is analogous to a stock becoming overpriced due to hype. I co…