How to earn a billion dollars • Hacker News Board

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#251

Post by dpkp » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #165

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…

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…

amusing that the most rational take on HN is immediately down-voted.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#252

Post by paulsutter » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

This essay is unfortunate because he isn't addressing the true misunderstanding of politicians like AOC, he's not explaining the consumer surplus (why the world gained 50x more from Google than the founders), and he's not explaining that wealth is craeted not taken.

Politicians spend their lives in one of the purest zero-sum systems in existence. Of course they don't have a gut level understanding of the creation of wealth.

But consumer surplus matters most of all. Imagine the net benefit to consumers of Robotaxi and Optimus (ok, ok, assuming they work, for the doubters in the room). Entrepreneurs capture

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#253

Post by tsimionescu » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

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…

The bit about Lucas is obviously not true. The universe he envisioned does not sell itself, it was marketed, developed, painted and modeled, added to, kept fresh etc for many many years by a huge army of people. If the only Star Wars media that existed were the original film, or even the original trilogy, it would sell relatively little by now.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#254

Post by mystraline » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

simianwords wrote: post #135

mystraline wrote: post #86

You do not EARN 1B$. You mass exploit labor at scale to exfiltrate 1B$. You commit wage theft to obtain 1B$ (the largest theft category). You union bust and fire workers who try to fight for better working conditions and wages. You engage in monopoly practices to obtain 1B$. You engage in corruption via 'campaign donations' to lay down laws that benefit you and harm others. Doctors earn. Engineers earn. Scientists ea…

Hi, this is called “Labour Theory Of Value”. And this is imo a popular theory of value creation a lot of people believe in and it has populist memetic value. But Labour Theory Of Value has been debunked and is mostly not used anymore.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it"

- Upton Sinclair

And, well, you are right that there are 'debunkments' of Labor Theory of Value. Of course, they are put out by hard right-wing laissez faire capitalist enclaves, like Mises. I would never expect them to take a dispassionate view of capitalism, given their extremist position.

https://mises.org/mises-wire/three-arguments-debunking-marxs...

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#255

Post by weavejester » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

not-a-cat wrote: post #130

weavejester wrote: post #121

How many businesses are there that are worth at least $1 billion and employ no-one but the founders? When people say that it's not possible to earn a billion dollars, they're talking about the discrepancy between the wealth gained by those employed by the company versus the shareholders of the company. For example, when WhatsApp was sold to Meta for $19 billion, how many of WhatsApp's 55 employees walked away with hu…

This wouldn't happen if employees rejected cash-based compensation and decided to be founders themselves. Most employees trade risk for higher cash comp, and end up with less upside. This issue is mostly settled by the employment market

Not everyone can afford to take the financial risk of being a founder, and not every business type can be started with low initial capital.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#256

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

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…

[flagged]

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#257

Post by atwrk » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:47 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.

Those taxes are the necessary condition in silly essays like this one from pg. Or why do you think those billionaires miraculously mostly end up in the US and not in countries like Sudan or Peru? I mean if those billionaires would actually be the wealth creators, not depending on society at large, they could become billionaires everywhere, right?

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#258

Post by doctorpangloss » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

thomassmith65 wrote: post #51

So you can imagine how astonished I was last month when an American politician said that it was impossible to earn a billion dollars [...] that it's impossible to get that rich without doing something bad — without cheating in some way. What counts as 'doing something bad' and 'cheating' clearly is subjective. I suspect Graham's opinion on the behavior of a Zuckerberg or a Musk would be a little more flattering than…

Well there are plenty of massively successful companies that Paul famously said no to investing in, for stylistic and opinionated and not greedy reasons, like Palantir. I'm sure in Paul's opinion they are doing something bad. Maybe not in Gary Tan's opinion. That is to say, not only is this stuff subjective, but it's complicated. Palantir and Flock, their main customer is the government, which complicates the story even further.

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#259

Post by stuaxo » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

TheTaytay wrote: post #129

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…

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.

You can have a system that generally isn't one of zero sum games that was that at the same time can become one when it becomes extremely unbalanced (e.g. when billionaires exist).

Re: How to earn a billion dollars

#260

Post by Twey » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

sobellian wrote: post #200

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…

Of course it's arguable. You make it sound like founders perform some jedi mind-trick to take money from others. Here's what actually happens. Investors put in initial money because it's a win-win (they get an expected return, founders get starting capital). Employees join because it's a win-win (they get a salary, health, equity, other perks; founders get a workforce). Customers pay cash because it's a win-win (they…

Health is not a perk but an inelastic demand: a threat to withhold health is a threat of physical harm, and a negotiation in which one party's physical health is on the line is quantitatively but not qualitatively different from a negotiation held with a gun to that party's head.