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You would be rich, but also poor.
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Honestly, I think that's true for a lot of VCs. They have to sound like they are smart and know the secrets of the industry so that entrepreneurs reach out to them (and many times on extremely skewed terms). But truth be told, a lot of VCs have been incredibly lucky with 1-2 bets they've made. Just a couple days ago was an article on front page of HN by Sam Altman about how to run a company, whereas he himself has ha…
A former coworker of mine said this years ago, and it stuck with me: ”Silicon valley is full of people who stepped in shit once, and are therefore now experts on horses.”
If you can ignore the constant “only rich people are meaningful human beings” message that is blared 24/7 from western culture, you might find that it’s easier to just go after what you want, directly.
> The Internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. What does "space of careers" mean?
Space is a concept from math which basically means dimensions. It's just a fancy way of saying "there are more career opportunities now because of internet".
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Honestly, I think that's true for a lot of VCs. They have to sound like they are smart and know the secrets of the industry so that entrepreneurs reach out to them (and many times on extremely skewed terms). But truth be told, a lot of VCs have been incredibly lucky with 1-2 bets they've made. Just a couple days ago was an article on front page of HN by Sam Altman about how to run a company, whereas he himself has ha…
Not all VCs are created equal. We work for quite a few of them and the range of knowledge, connections, personalities, founder friendliness and ethics is quite broad. As a result of that there are VCs that you really don't want to have anything to do with and VCs that it is a pleasure to work with and that go to bat for the founders of the portfolio companies they've invested in with great regularity.
Would really help entrepreneurs make the right choice when it comes to approaching investors right. Of course, this can further boil up or down to investment firms rather than individual investors, based on seried of funding etc.
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You can create software/automation system that works/creates value for users. As a creator, you can ethically derive wealth from that value even when you are asleep. Added as part of a reply: Certain systems create value in excess of individual components you put into it. (That system may include a variety of resources that you pay market costs for, not only just your personal labor.) The creator of the system can ea…
technically, yes, but you had to work to create it, and probably have to continue to work to maintain it in the face of competition. If you have created some kind of lock-in which allows you to extract rent indefinitely from some initial effort, then you have some degree of monopoly, which would be ethically questionable.
If we define rich as not having to work, it could be achieved with a low income, but low expenses. At an extreme, perhaps, self-sufficiency, using knowledge and technology (even robots?) instead of back-breaking stope subsistence farming. You would be rich, but also poor.
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But one important part of their success was to invest their income. I know too many people that use their money to consume. Investing early in your life is what makes the difference. It's very easy to spend it on little things and claim to not have anything to invest.
Do you have advices for young people in long term investments ?
Keep an emergency fund of 2-4 months in cash or equivalents, and invest everything else that you can when young. Don’t buy the flashy new car, the rounds of $15 drinks, don’t carry a credit card balance, etc. When the inevitable market gyrations come, do not take the money out. Don’t try to time the market.
If you don’t have much money to get started, consider real estate as a second job. The leveraged nature of that bet is one of the few ways to start from relatively little money and build a nest egg. It’s a second job, though. If you pay a PM to manage it, the PM makes more current income than you do in most cases.
In addition to jacquesm’s advice to read MMM, I also recommend the jlcollins stock series: http://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/
"Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep." If you are earning wealth while you sleep, it must be coming from somewhere. Either it is illusory (eg interest, which is cancelled by inflation), or it is being generated by other people working. "Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible." Thus, this statement is dubious in the context of "wealth while you sleep".
Neither are wealth crestion while you sleep.
These examples use an absolute measure of wealth, of food. Whereas, labour amplification in our society is neutralized over time: when everyone has the same tool, your labour is no longer (relatively) amplified.
The typical application of these ideas to todays society involves a moat or artificial barrier that prevents your labour from being commoditized, while you benefit from everyone else's labour, which is commoditized. Typically, "you' are an in-group, with special knowledge and powers.