Founding Stories Are Myths • Hacker News Board

Re: Founding Stories Are Myths

#61

Post by throwaway84742 » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #58

throwaway84742 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude turned that million dollar loan into $140M though. People tend to omit that part for some reason.

As did absolutely anyone and everyone who had money invested in Manhattan Real estate at the time. Trumps real business record is abysmal with a few gambles that paid off and it appears purely due to luck. Additionally, when his father died, all that money was passed down. Had that amount of money been put in the S&P 500 at the time, trump would be far richer today.

When you turn a few million dollars into $4.5B you can come here and talk about “abysmal” records and stuff. With very few exceptions, any businessman would give their first born to have an abysmal record of this kind, and _then_ top it off by becoming POTUS.

Re: Founding Stories Are Myths

#62

Post by TheWrongGuy » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 8:32 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #49

TheWrongGuy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe true, but the article is pretty much replacing what you'd call "career porn" with what I'd call "persistence porn." About the kid who walked in the snow wearing nothing but a t shirt every day to get his degree, yadda yadda.. ignore the fact that Sam Walton he had a rich stepdad who financed his businesses, that he was in a prestigious fraternity and secret society at UoM, and had a number of other benefits tha…

> benefits that are simply not available to your average hard-working chump What smart investor seeks out "average chumps" exactly? That's an excellent way to lose money. Your setup is a rather amusing contradiction. You think the $200,000 (Walton put in $50,000) - inflation adjusted - that his step-father put in, was unavailable to everyone else and it made all the difference in Walton's success? I grew up in an ext…

That's all fine, and you're right: Sam Walton was talented and it was a smart investment. You've interpreted my "average hard-working chump" to mean "not a talented businessman" which is not what I meant. I just think that if you got a bunch of money from your father in law and were part of prestigious society that needs to be part of the story. If it's omitted, I have to think that the author is intentionally pushing an alternate but equally-inaccurate view of how success happens.

Re: Founding Stories Are Myths

#63

Post by petra » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #53

newsat13 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-american, what's wrong with walmart? Apart from them being 'big'?

There has only ever been one serious problem with Walmart: it historically hasn't paid very well. It's just starting to kinda-sorta catch up with Target and Costco in pay and benefits. There's a pay trade-off that the Walmart critics go dramatically out of their way to avoid however. Costco can pay what they do, because their employee to sales ratio is extremely different from Walmart. Walmart employs a lot more peop…

It easier to survive on a 2.8% margin in that business, because it works by rapidly getting that 2.8% return on capital - and reusing that money to buy new product. They actually do that 8 times per year.

So than their real yearly returns on capital are close to 11.5%.