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How to Be Successful

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: How to Be Successful

#81

Post by SandersAK »

sama wrote: post #34
aphextron wrote: post #11

1. Be born to a wealthy middle class family and go to an elite school.

The biggest reason I'm excited about basic income is the amount of human potential it will unleash by freeing more people to take risks. Until then, if you aren't born lucky, you have to claw your way up for awhile before you can take big swings. If you are born in extreme poverty, then this is super difficult :( It is obviously an incredible shame and waste that opportunity is so unevenly distributed. But I've witne…

I'm glad that you noted this in the comments, but I think it'd be helpful to see it in the blog post.

Any chance for an edit?

Re: How to Be Successful

#82

Post by [deleted] »

eanzenberg wrote: post #37
sama wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest reason I'm excited about basic income is the amount of human potential it will unleash by freeing more people to take risks. Until then, if you aren't born lucky, you have to claw your way up for awhile before you can take big swings. If you are born in extreme poverty, then this is super difficult :( It is obviously an incredible shame and waste that opportunity is so unevenly distributed. But I've witne…

What basic income will most likely do is send vast swaths of average people to entertainment and drugs. It's already happening, as social nets get bigger and wider.

[deleted]

Re: How to Be Successful

#83

Post by liminal_wizard »

Sam, how does "consistency" play a role?

I'm all over the place in my work over the past 10 years. I've worked on projects in several different disciplines (biotech, accelerators, consulting, environment). I tend to make forceful starts, but then drive myself off course either running out of money and getting a job or lack of a long term vision.

How do I resolve this?

Re: How to Be Successful

#84

Post by TrackerFF »

aphextron wrote: post #11

1. Be born to a wealthy middle class family and go to an elite school.

I have to admit, I was going to post this - but it's probably a very polarized opinion.

The thing is, people do love the idealistic idea of every man creating his own luck - or that if you just work hard and smart enough, the sky is the limit.

When I went a top business school for my MBA, I'd say that 70% of my peers had the same upper middle-class upbringing. Back then, the vast majority went into consulting or banking, and are by every measure successful.

Ten years later and I now work in the startup industry, and it's mostly the same type people I went to b-school with. Not _wealthy_ people, but in the upper echelons of middle / upper middle-class.

I'm not even talking about the "small loan of a million dollars" or trust-fund babies, but just being born into a financially secure family, that pushed you to get a good education, which in turn led you to a good job, and a decent network.

I've lost count on how many ex-McKinsey, Bain, and BCG consultants I've met in the startup scene. People have this idea of entrepreneurs as your garage hacker, or avg. HS / College kid that came up with some neat solution - but from what I've seen, it's mostly kids from top schools, or ex-technologists, bankers, consultants, etc. from top companies, with the same socioeconomic and academic backgrounds.

Not at all disputing list that Sam wrote - lots of the people mentioned above do share these - but I think it's healthy to point out that some people have a clear advantage over others, even in the allegedly _meritocratic_ world of entrepreneurship.

Re: How to Be Successful

#85

Post by xiphias2 »

Own things: I agree with this.

The best way to own things is to leave Google/Facebook: What??? I know this is an entrepreneur blog, but what happened to the sentence ,,If you want to be rich don't start a startup''?

Most of my friends who are rich are working (or worked) at Google/Facebook and just accumulated assets over time (until they had enough money to stop working).

All you need is start accumulating assets as early as possible and get to 15-20x of your salary (at most 10 years if you're really frugal, more if not that frugal). Don't be afraid of not having much cash left if you have a stable job.

Re: How to Be Successful

#86

Post by _Schizotypy »

avip wrote: post #35
telesilla wrote: post #10

It's also very successful, if you have built a stable business and a way of supporting yourself and a few others around you. Being successful doesn't always mean having a 1BN valuation. But sure, it's nice to think that one day, it could happen. I'm just grateful every day that what I've got now - stability and plenty of resources - was a result of pretty much what Sam said. Believing in ourselves and not giving up,…

It's also very successful if you were a stay home parent and your kids were able to succeed thanks to your efforts.

So in terms of children being successful, are we just judging by reproduction in this case? Wow, such a feat

Re: How to Be Successful

#87

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

sama wrote: post #34
aphextron wrote: post #11

1. Be born to a wealthy middle class family and go to an elite school.

The biggest reason I'm excited about basic income is the amount of human potential it will unleash by freeing more people to take risks. Until then, if you aren't born lucky, you have to claw your way up for awhile before you can take big swings. If you are born in extreme poverty, then this is super difficult :( It is obviously an incredible shame and waste that opportunity is so unevenly distributed. But I've witne…

I don't know why I couldn't upvote you but this absolutely. Also in India where there was universal basic income one of the positive side effect was that it reduced domestic violence as it gave financial freedom to women.

What most people don't understand is that UBI is not about giving free money. It's about giving the poorest of the poor a fighting chance to survive and shine in this unequal world.

Sure a certain percentage of the crowd will take advantage and be a "dole bludger" but these are persistent even in unemployment benefits schemes.

Re: How to Be Successful

#89

Post by tanilama »

sama wrote: post #34
aphextron wrote: post #11

1. Be born to a wealthy middle class family and go to an elite school.

The biggest reason I'm excited about basic income is the amount of human potential it will unleash by freeing more people to take risks. Until then, if you aren't born lucky, you have to claw your way up for awhile before you can take big swings. If you are born in extreme poverty, then this is super difficult :( It is obviously an incredible shame and waste that opportunity is so unevenly distributed. But I've witne…

It is unlikely UBI will enable average person to go to an elite school, because by definition elite implies scarcity.
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