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

How to earn a billion dollars

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 1001 posts

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#591

Post by enraged_camel »

RugnirViking wrote: post #574

A true, but vapid speech. You can grow to be a quintillionaire if you start as a trillionaire and grow at 990% a month for X months, too. It's almost as though the devil is literally in the details? I don't even think it's wrong, it just says almost nothing about anything that isn't blindingly obvious. Maybe the most interesting observation is a buried point near the end that the natural cap on this is market size. T…

>> A true, but vapid speech.

PG got into an argument with AOC about it on Twitter. It sounded like he was personally offended by what she was saying. Which makes sense because, as someone who has helped startup founders become famously wealthy, he probably took her statement as an attack on his identity.

Perhaps PG should follow his own advice, though: https://paulgraham.com/identity.html

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#592

Post by pandoro »

> What she meant was that it's impossible to get that rich without doing something bad — without cheating in some way.

> But startups are the most common way to become really rich, and if you want to start a successful startup, the key is not exploitation but empathy.

There is no doubt that Graham is right in saying there is a formula to becoming a billionaire and that formula involves creating products that help your users in some way.

However this is very narrow, reductionist interpretation of AOC's comment. You need to put it into perspective of the massively increasing global wealth inequality.

In 2011, billionaires owned 4.5 trillion USD of wealth. Today, fifteen years later, it's 20.1 trillion USD. This amounts to about 20% of the entire planet's GDP. That means 0.000003% of humans capture 20% of the value globally created. The top 12 billionaires own more than 50% of the bottom half of humanity.

How can you sensibly argue that this is not exploitation?

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#593

Post by wat10000 »

pipes wrote: post #509

The amount of negativity to this is depressing. No one seems to be contradicting anything he's saying here, instead it's just vacuous ideology "extraction" etc etc. Purposely narrow reading. I've got kids, I want people creating start ups they can work in, the alternative is too grim.

The post is patronizing as hell, it’s no wonder people respond to it negatively. Patting people on the head and saying “you moron, it’s just two numbers” isn’t a good way to make an argument.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#594

Post by laser »

At scale the only utility of wealth is the power it gives to allocate the means of production. The vast majority of ultra high net worth individuals spend a tiny fraction of their wealth on personal consumptive activities, the only true "cost" born by society. But in exchange for this small cost aside from the benefits accrued to society existing in a natural state of free trade and commerce, society also gets to have its means of production managed by those most qualified to do so—those that created the means and have the most to gain from it continuing to operate well and most to lose from it failing to deliver value.

The counterfactual, a society in which the means of production are allocated by those that did not create them and do not stand to lose in their inefficient operation, is already familiar to many, in government services and old oligopolies with low insider ownership.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#595

Post by bluecheese452 »

imgabe wrote: post #583
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if -- bear with me here -- it's possible for bright, motivated founders to create startups that your kids can work in, but those founders could be content with merely making a hundred million dollars? Because, and I don't know if you know this so you may have to take it on faith, that is still so much money that said founder and their family and very likely their descendants can live in extreme luxury for the re…

Who is going to cap how much a company is allowed to be worth? Or how much of the company you start you are allowed to own? Why should anyone have the power to do that? That is a far more evil power than any billionaire has.

[flagged]

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#596

Post by seventytwo »

imgabe wrote: post #583
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if -- bear with me here -- it's possible for bright, motivated founders to create startups that your kids can work in, but those founders could be content with merely making a hundred million dollars? Because, and I don't know if you know this so you may have to take it on faith, that is still so much money that said founder and their family and very likely their descendants can live in extreme luxury for the re…

Who is going to cap how much a company is allowed to be worth? Or how much of the company you start you are allowed to own? Why should anyone have the power to do that? That is a far more evil power than any billionaire has.

We are. All of us. If enough of us agree, we can make any rule we want.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#597

Post by sharts »

pipes wrote: post #509

The amount of negativity to this is depressing. No one seems to be contradicting anything he's saying here, instead it's just vacuous ideology "extraction" etc etc. Purposely narrow reading. I've got kids, I want people creating start ups they can work in, the alternative is too grim.

Huh? Why do you require billionaires for your kids? There are so many alternatives

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#598

Post by greedo »

laser wrote: post #594

At scale the only utility of wealth is the power it gives to allocate the means of production. The vast majority of ultra high net worth individuals spend a tiny fraction of their wealth on personal consumptive activities, the only true "cost" born by society. But in exchange for this small cost aside from the benefits accrued to society existing in a natural state of free trade and commerce, society also gets to hav…

"most qualified to do so"

Yes, us poors should be reminded that our bettors will create the means blah blah blah.

You know who funded Arpanet? How the transistor was developed? On and on, taxpayers funded it. And now we have leeches acting like teenagers who think they invented sex.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#599

Post by bluecheese452 »

Telemakhos wrote: post #227
owaiswiz wrote: post #163

> She was getting richer at a stupendously rapid rate. And yet she hadn't been doing anything bad. The reason her startup was growing so fast was simply that users loved what she'd built. So she could feel from her own experience how wrong that politician was. She wasn't exploiting anyone. I presume it's a company that just has co-founders then? Or everyone is getting an equal % of the share? In which case SHE's not…

Let's say she has ten employees. They all voluntarily agree to work for her: slavery is illegal, so people work for others on a consensual basis. Both the employer and employee negotiated and consented to a salary or wage schedule for that employee. The employer pays the agreed-upon compensation, and the employee receives it. If the company makes an unexpectedly large profit, the employer is not obligated to redistri…

And we all lived happily ever after in our frictionless world of spherical cows.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#600

Post by GreenSalem »

Words of wisdom. PG is always worth Reading.

The haters do not seem to be actually reading and comprehending PG's article.

I have news for you.

The article is not written for those of you who are comprehension challenged...

Post reply on HN