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How to earn a billion dollars

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#201

Post by hdgvhicv »

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.

People who earn money pay taxes

While at Amazon Jeff Bezos considers his worth to be 80k a year hence he was paid that much, and paid taxes in that salary.

If someone becomes a billionaire by being paid 50m a year for 40 years and paying taxes on that income then congrats.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#202

Post by groundzeros2015 »

atmavatar wrote: post #74

This article reads like a rather flippant dismissal of the original concern that "earning" a billion dollars cannot be done without some moral compromise. Sure, if you start off with $2 million and double it 9 times, you end up with $1 billion. Exponential growth is a powerful thing, so it comes as no surprise that maintaining a large growth rate over time very quickly grows a starting sum into a much larger pool of…

> that "earning" a billion dollars cannot be done without some moral compromise.

What did George Lucas do?

LeBron has to be worth a few hundred million. What did he do?

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#203

Post by blanched »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #189
CPLX wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His entire essay is just based on a purposeful misreading of the opposing point. It's a straw man. And if you look at his history it's obviously intentional and part of his usual style of argument. The actual opposing argument is that it's impossible to create a billion dollar enterprise without a group effort, and for one person to end up with a billion dollars necessarily means that they made decisions within that…

> it's impossible to create a billion dollar enterprise without a group effort George Lucas made a movie with a (small) group effort. But what made a billion dollars is his Star Wars universe which is almost entirely his creation. It literally creates wealth for other people. If my toy sells $10,000 without Star Wars and $100,000 with it, did I participate in making George’s billion, or am I benefiting from it? > mea…

> George Lucas

Once again, lopsided allocation - George benefited from and is directly responsible for keeping the cost of labor low: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/100...

Would he have been a billionaire without that? Who knows? But it definitely helped him get there.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#204

Post by camgunz »

> There are two numbers that determine how big a startup gets, and thus how rich its founders become: the growth rate and how long it continues

> The reason her startup was growing so fast was simply that users loved what she'd built.

> In the real world, growth rates tend to slow down a bit. A very successful startup will probably be growing faster than 15% a month in year 1 and slower than 15% a month in year 4.

It turns out that the people who will invest in your startup when 93% MoM gains are possible want you to do pretty much anything to keep growth as high as possible--also your career, net worth, and employment are tied to this so you're similarly motivated--including squeezing and manipulating those users who loved you so much. But hey, as long as you personally get rich it's fine I guess.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#205

Post by jrm4 »

simianwords wrote: post #139
jrm4 wrote: post #93

Please don't bury the lede here of how the author completely and epically misses the point of the statement. It's not about the math of the thing, it's about the arguably necessary exploitation that must occur to hit those kinds of numbers. And in fact, IMHO, you don't even need to get to "exploitation" to criticize this mentality. Any normal human would (and if not would, SHOULD) want to stop "earning" well before t…

There’s no exploitation involved because it is not a zero sum situation.

This is a ridiculously oversimplified application of first year economic theory. No, we do not live in the textbook fantasy of "everyone is always free to make favorable trades and therefore no one is exploited."

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#206

Post by groundzeros2015 »

readingnews wrote: post #44

The real problem is his example, "you start off with 2 million dollars and 95% growth rate". Fine, show me the average person who can come up with 2 million dollars. I sure as hell can not. I even went to banks and founders with my ideas, cash flow sheets and customer list looking for a loan. No, I am convinced, the rich already have 2 million dollars, and make themselves a billionaire. The system is rigged against "…

Of course people who have more access to money and parents who understand money would be better at earning it.

Why are you presupposing the world is just when EVERY skill and opportunity is distributed non-linearly?

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#207

Post by AdamN »

wnevets wrote: post #191
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…

> pg's reading of it is so blunt and misrepresentative that I'm nervous about what kind of content he's consuming. Does this mean you haven't been following his twitter the past several years?

No I got off that trainwreck a long time ago

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#209

Post by systemf_omega »

TrackerFF wrote: post #116

I think the distinction the politician tried to make, was that you don't "earn" a billion dollars the same way the vast majority of people make their money. You become a billionaire by company ownership, not getting cold hard cash. The hierarchy of wage looks something like: 1. hourly pay (how many hours you can work sets the maximum possible salary) 2. base pay + cash bonus (the cash bonus starts to increase your ea…

You say "stuck at (1)" as if most people actually desire this kind of wealth and are trying to become entrepreneurs.

The simple truth is that many people don't want to step into that kind of intensity and uncertainty, or lack the skills to succeed in a cutthroat industry.

The idea that founders are somehow "cheating" is hilarious to me. Anyone in the developed world can easily become a founder, why don't you try it?

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#210

Post by stephc_int13 »

The issue with billionaires is that some of them got insanely rich while being net negative from a societal perspective.

The most famous ones ended-up in prison (Sam Bankman Fried, Elizabeth Holmes, Jeffrey Epstein, Bernie Madoff) but anyone with a basic grasp of statistics and criminal behavior know that many others will escape the justice system forever.

It does not mean that all billionaires are bad, the criminals are not the majority, but there are enough criminals to justify skepticism and scrutiny.

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