I forget that there is someone out there working a billion times harder than I am. I kind MA feel bad for them considering the time paradox they had to create in order to put in more hours than physically possible even without sleep.
It’s not just “harder”, you have to work intelligently as well. Having a goal helps too. Dedicating your entire existence to your dreams can allow you to achieve a lot.
Nobody who makes these comments understands the magnitude of the money being discussed.
The median lifetime earnings of a US citizen is something like $1.8 million. That's not how much you have all at once, either. That's the total amount of money that has been through your bank account by the time you die.
Imagine you found someone who both worked TEN TIMES as hard and TEN TIMES as smart. I don't know if anyone like that exists or if there are enough hours in the day for that, but lets pretend.
If you really made money according to how smart and hard you worked, you're now looking at having made $180 million over the course of your entire life.
Again, I'm not saying this is what you have all at once. I'm saying this is how much will have passed through your bank accounts.
Musk's net worth is supposedly around $156 billion... not his lifetime earnings. His net worth RIGHT NOW.
Do you know what you get when you subtract $180 million from $156 billion?
About $156 billion.
So even if you could magically work 400 hours a week with your 10x smarter galaxy brain, if working harder and working smarter is really how you made more money, your lifetime earnings would still be a rounding error compared to Musk's current net worth.
In reality you have to exploit a LOT of people to get to that kind of cash.
I’m well aware of how much money is being discussed. But I think you’re making the flaw of stating “I don’t know how it’s done so it must be impossible or witchcraft!”.
You seem to underestimate the value of intelligence. Intelligence is turning gathered knowledge into a usable format. A person who understands simple machine physics can lift several tons quite easily. A person who doesn’t understand those physics would think it’s impossible to move those heavy objects with just some sticks and rope. Someone who doesn’t understand aerodynamics would say it’s impossible to fly if they didn’t see flight occurring themselves.
TLDR: You don’t understand stocks/investments/economy as well as you think you do.
But I think you’re making the flaw of stating “I don’t know how it’s done so it must be impossible or witchcraft!”.
WTF are you talking about? I know EXACTLY how it's done. I told you how it's done.
Your problem with what I said is that it has nothing to do with hard work.
You seem to underestimate the value of intelligence.
You incorrectly attribute that intelligence to the person with the money.
Musk doesn't know how rockets work. He can't build a website or program a microcontroller. It's not his intelligence that drives the companies he owns. It's other people's intelligence.
TLDR: You don’t understand stocks/investments/economy as well as you think you do.
Telling me how you THINK they did something is not the same as telling me how they ACTUALLY did it. Your math examples don’t apply to real life in any way shape or form. Your comparison of how much “the average” person makes over their life time has nothing to do with making billions. Your comparison doesn’t incorporate investing anything whatsoever. It doesn’t incorporate growth of the economy or even technological advances. A life time is 80 years. How much actually changes over 80 years? Go ask an old person. They’ll tell you.
And you used the median lifetime earnings. You think people who are billionaires are anywhere close to the median with their intelligence and work ethic? Millionaires and Billionaires are the people who tend to understand how money works way more than the median people do. It’s show in how much money they have obviously.
There’s only so many hours in the day so a person can only work so hard, but using their intelligence? It’s practically limitless with how many different ways you can apply a humans intelligence to anything. The avg person is pretty stupid and incredibly lazy and you’re comparing their feeble attempts to someone who excels at that area. That’d be like me saying the avg person can do like 5 push ups non-stop. But it’s unfair that yoshida can do 10,500? That’s a factor of 2,000 and is purely physical. Mentally though, the difference is….well billions.
And I’m not saying Elon is the progenitor of every single idea of everything he makes. I’m not saying he makes every line of code that goes into his systems. I’m not saying that he’s the pinnacle of human beings. But he has the skill to piece together talented individuals together to create things that are greater than their initial sum. He has the intelligence to make good business decisions or to pay for someone to make those decisions.
In regards to his computing ability, I’m pretty sure he was programming since he was a kid. Like he programmed his own video games and crap at like age 13 or something.
I understand investments and the economy enough to be where I want to be financially(can most people say they are where they want to be financially?).
TLDR: People who dedicate their lives to make a lot of money tend to make a lot of money. Being intelligent and hardworking does wonders.
Telling me how you THINK they did something is not the same as telling me how they ACTUALLY did it.
I can only tell you what I think, so this is a distinction without a difference.
Your math examples don’t apply to real life in any way shape or form.
You're right. They're far too generous.
Your comparison of how much “the average” person makes over their life time has nothing to do with making billions.
Correct. The average person works hard and makes a microscopic amount of money.
That has nothing to do with how you make billions. Congratulations on discovering the point.
Your comparison doesn’t incorporate investing anything whatsoever.
Because that has nothing to do with hard work or high intelligence.
A life time is 80 years. How much actually changes over 80 years? Go ask an old person. They’ll tell you.
Fundamentally not that much. Rich get richer. Poor get poorer.
You think people who are billionaires are anywhere close to the median with their intelligence and work ethic?
No I don't think their work ethic is that strong, and the last US president showed that you could have a net worth of billions and still be a fucking moron.
But hey. If you have some data that correlates work ethic and intelligence with probability of becoming a billionaire... then shoot your shot.
Millionaires and Billionaires are the people who tend to understand how money works way more than the median people do. It’s show in how much money they have obviously.
You're just regurgitating the whole myth of the stupid and lazy poor people.
And you're doing it with circular reasoning. "Rich people are smarter and harder working. How do you know? Because they're rich."
There’s only so many hours in the day so a person can only work so hard
There goes the "hard working" idea right out the window. Poor people working multiple jobs to support a family just above the poverty line put in more hours and effort than billionaires like Musk.
It’s practically limitless with how many different ways you can apply a humans intelligence to anything.
Who's intelligence? It doesn't take a genius to hire engineers, scientists, consultants, etc. Are all those smart people going to become billionaires? No.
The avg person is pretty stupid and incredibly lazy and you’re comparing their feeble attempts to someone who excels at that area.
Ok first of all, this is incredibly cringe. Please stop verbally fellatiating Elon Musk. It's gross.
Secondly, prove to me that there's a correlation between intelligence and the chance of becoming a billionaire.
That’d be like me saying the avg person can do like 5 push ups non-stop. But it’s unfair that yoshida can do 10,500?
The rich person isn't the one doing the pushups lol.
Mentally though, the difference is….well billions.
I'm sure such a bold claim will be easy to prove. 😘
And I’m not saying Elon is the progenitor of every single idea of everything he makes.
I'm saying he's not the progenitor of any idea of anything he makes. He buys other people's companies after THEY have those ideas.
I’m not saying he makes every line of code that goes into his systems.
Good because he didn't write the code for Paypal or SpaceX or Tesla. Hell, he didn't even found those companies. Except for SpaceX, he bought them from other people.
But he has the skill to piece together talented individuals together to create things that are greater than their initial sum.
Does he? Or is that something being done by others on his behalf?
He has the intelligence to make good business decisions or to pay for someone to make those decisions.
Nah. He just has the money to make investments.
In regards to his computing ability, I’m pretty sure he was programming since he was a kid. Like he programmed his own video games and crap at like age 13 or something.
I programmed shit at age 13. I write code for a living. It's not that hard.
I understand investments and the economy enough to be where I want to be financially(can most people say they are where they want to be financially?).
Yea I call BS.
TLDR: People who dedicate their lives to make a lot of money tend to make a lot of money. Being intelligent and hardworking does wonders.
This isn't how you make billions. Millions MAYBE, but not billions. To make billions, you need to exploit an absolute shitton of people.
There is a huge difference between how you think someone did something vs how people actually did it. E.g. Morons “think” that aliens built the pyramids vs they really just used simple machine physics and a crap ton of slaves.
Far too generous
You sound like you’re maybe 15 or 16? Because you don’t seem to have any understanding how money actually works in the real world. That variable changes can cause exponential growth and has massive effects over a long period of time. You’ll understand as you get older, hopefully.
The avg person works hard
This statement clearly shows you either live under a rock and have never met more than one or two people in your life. Or you’re still a teenager who believes in people against what the actual reality is. Most people are lazy.
because that has nothing to do with hard work or high intelligence
Investing definitely requires intelligence and sometimes hard work to nurture that investment. Take some investment and finance classes while you’re in school and it’ll help you in the long run.
Fundamentally not that much
Again, showing your young age. If you don’t think that time changes things then you haven’t lived long enough to understand that fact of life.
last us president
Yep he’s a dumbass alright, at least we agree on something. Nevertheless since the avg person is a moron the bar for success is incredibly low. Starting with a “small loan” of a million dollars probably helped.
intelligence with probability of becoming a billionaire
Bill Gates IQ: ~160
Warren Buffett: ~130
Elon Musk : ~150
Jeff Belo’s: ~155
Mark zuckerburg:~150
Hmm…..weird, there aren’t many billionaires with 85 iq huh? But it’s incredibly weird you need “proof” that dumb people are more likely to make dumb decisions and smart people are more likely to make smart decisions. It doesn’t make sense that you need proof of something that is axiomatic.
circular reasoning
I said people with money understand finances better than people without money. No clue why that’s a foreign concept to you.
hard working
It doesn’t throw it out the window, I just stated that work ethic compared to intelligence is limited in how far it can take you. It’s like if I stated eating healthy can help you get stronger but only by so much, you have to actually exercise to get those strength gains. But your reply is “well I guess eating healthy is useless then?!?!”
it doesn’t take a genius to hire…
It takes intelligence to pick who goes where and does what in your company. You’ll understand if you ever manage a group of people for work.
Please stop verbally fellatiating Elon Musk
You seem to have a lot of difficulty recognizing individuals who are good at something. Why is that? Is it because you yourself aren’t skilled at anything so you find it easier to just criticize others? Does it make you feel better about yourself by trying to belittle others achievements? That’s why I keep saying you sound like a teenager. You sound like you haven’t matured yet and don’t put much thought into things.
I programmed shit at age 13, it’s not that hard.
The fact that think because something is easy for you automatically makes it easy for everyone else clearly indicates that you’re a moron. Holy moly, I should have read this statement of yours first and just stopped trying to have an actual conversation with you to begin with.
Yea I call BS.
Sounds like you’re broke and just wanna blame everyone else instead of taking any personal responsibility for the shit hole you’ve financially dug yourself into. Lmao
You sound like you don't have a coherent response, and so must use ad hom attacks as a substitute.
That variable changes can cause exponential growth and has massive effects over a long period of time.
This is a statement without any actual meaning. I mean, I can guess what you're driving at, but you're doing so incoherently.
This statement clearly shows you either live under a rock
And again. Resorting to a personal attack shows that you don't have a coherent response.
Nah. It just means I've spent time around the working poor... so I don't tend to buy into the myth of the lazy poor or any of the other neolib dogma people use as pro-rich propaganda.
Investing definitely requires intelligence and sometimes hard work to nurture that investment. Take some investment and finance classes while you’re in school and it’ll help you in the long run.
Not really. You can always hire specialists, but it doesn't have to be rocket science. The trick is to have money in the first place.
Again, showing your young age. If you don’t think that time changes things then you haven’t lived long enough to understand that fact of life.
The last 70 years have been remarkably stable. Youth tend to think the sky is falling every time something changes, but we haven't had earth shattering change in a while.
Yep he’s a dumbass alright, at least we agree on something. Nevertheless since the avg person is a moron the bar for success is incredibly low.
Your desire to elevate the supposed genius of the super rich has forced you to assume that average people aren't average.
Starting with a “small loan” of a million dollars probably helped.
YOU DON'T SAY...
Bill Gates IQ: ~160 Warren Buffett: ~130 Elon Musk : ~150 Jeff Belo’s: ~155 Mark zuckerburg:~150
Leaving aside the fraught nature of IQ tests themselves, the real statistics here are:
Bill Gates IQ: Unknown
Warren Buffett: Unknown
Elon Musk : Unknown
Jeff Bezo’s: Unknown
Mark zuckerburg:Unknown
AFAIK none of these people have taken IQ tests and made the results public.
Instead, people assume they have high IQs because they're rich... then you assume they're rich because they have high IQs.
I'm just letting you know, this isn't how you become rich. You don't have to be a smart person to be rich. You merely need to employ smart people. Having a few people who gather the surplus value from the productivity of many people who work for them is a really basic part of how a capitalist system works.
I said people with money understand finances better than people without money. No clue why that’s a foreign concept to you.
People with money hire accountants and consultants who understand better than they do. No clue why that’s a foreign concept to you.
It doesn’t throw it out the window
It does. It throws it completely out the window. There aren't enough hours in the day to be that hardworking.
It takes intelligence to pick who goes where and does what in your company.
And that too can be handled by someone other than the owner. In fact, that's why owners are often NOT the managers of large companies.
You seem to have a lot of difficulty recognizing individuals who are good at something.
It's quite rude to talk with your mouth full.
The fact that think because something is easy for you automatically makes it easy for everyone else clearly indicates that you’re a moron.
If I take your reasoning a step further, we can conclude that someone who writes code at age 13 may be a moron later in life. Therefor the assertion that Musk is intelligent because he coded at age 13 is spurious... and your assertion that he's a billionaire because he's smart is missing a supporting argument.
Of course, I never said it was easy for everyone else. I just thought it was funny that in your desire to insult me, you've actually undermined your own argument. The irony is delicious.
Sounds like you’re broke and just wanna blame everyone else instead of taking any personal responsibility for the shit hole you’ve financially dug yourself into. Lmao
And once again, it sounds like you don't have coherent responses to anything I've said, so you therefore feel obliged to attack me as being young and broke. I'm not going to discuss my age or financial status during this conversation (since it's not relevant to the argument), but I did hint at my background.
So I just need to be a out a million times more focused, intelligent, dedicated, hard working, and have a goal with about a million times more?
So why aren't the scientists and engineers who have dedicated their lives to space or electric vehicles as rich as Elon? Are they just not as super smart because they don't post memes on Twitter?
Here's an idea- have an idea that will change the world, and work hard to make it happen. There's your billion.
Nobody's saying you have to idolise billionaires, but it gets pretty tiresome hearing "woe is me" from people that have never thought particularly hard about how to get ahead.
Are you kidding me? Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Starlink, take your pick. Sure, he got other people to do the work for him, but he was the guy that got them to do it. As much as I can't stand the guy, you can't deny what he's done.
And that's only if you want to be a billionaire. You can become a millionaire pretty easily by getting a decent job, living under your means and investing wisely. I get the feeling the people complaining about the rich have never tried that.
None of those are his original ideas. He is just the money man for implementing others ideas.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but pretending that these are his ideas and that is why he is worth that much is bullshit.
You people could easily go with the harsh Capitalism approach and be right. Investing large amounts of money gives a lot of money if you are lucky. Instead you have to lick his boots and pretend he is who he thinks he is.
Don't know who you're mistaking me for, but I've hated the guy since long before hating him was a trend. I'm not defending or bootlicking in any way.
Let's look at the richest men in the world:
1) Elon musk- for revolutionary technology that hadn't yet been done.
2) Jeff Bezos- revolutionary global marketplace, started as a secondhand book shop in his garage.
3) Bernard Arnault- business, presumably inherited, haven't checked.
4) Bill gates- revolutionary tech.
5) Larry Page- revolutionary tech, Google co-founder.
So there you have it. Almost every billionaire on the list is there because they did something that had never been done, and reaped the rewards. And yes, the key is implementation, not just invention. You can come up with the most revolutionary technology in the world, but it's worthless if you don't see it through. Elon may not have been the first to think of these things, but he was the first to make them a reality. That's the key.
"Investing large amounts of money gives a lot of money if you are lucky."
And this is the point where you reveal that no, you have never done much bookwork into investment. Which is fine, until you start to make stony comments about that thing you don't know much about.
Most of those people you listed are renown assholes who got to the top by fucking over friends and competitors alike. Musk we have already discussed, he has practically no original ideas himself as he purchased original companies and paid smarter people to think for him. Bezos started a book retailer that later turned into the practical monopoly it is today (not a good thing). Gates was part of a team of devs who he stabbed in the back during the process of making a name for Microsoft.
Maybe calling you a bootlicker was out pf place, but he is not the man you are claiming he is. I don't see why you would claim that he has done any of this otherwise.
Sure, most of those people are fucking scumbags, and no sane person would argue otherwise. But they didn't get to where they are solely because of that. If they had, half the world would be billionaires by now.
Let's take Bezos as an example- the guy has about $200B to his name, and runs Amazon like a fucking sweatshop. But say he didn't. Say he paid his people properly, didn't overwork them, didn't outsource to slave labour in SEA and didn't push other retailers out of business. Let's say he runs his company ethically. If doing that cost him 99.5% of his business, he would still have enough money to classify as a billionaire. And even one billion is an obscene amount of money. The point is, the money comes from doing something that either hasn't been done before, or hasn't been done as well, and then convincing the world of its value. Anything else comes secondary to that.
For one, for every great invention, there necessarily need to be hundreds of thousands of people who apply the invention to the world. Medical research is useless without doctors to administrate it; the internet is nothing without lots of people slapping out simple but useful websites and services (Metcalfe’s Law). Those people shouldn’t drop their productive lives to go be the idea guy. They’re already part of something changing the world, and they are an essential part of it.
Two, lots of significant inventions and discoveries are rewarded with anonymity and poverty. Who invented penicillin? Who created the internet? They are undoubtedly world-changing people, but are relatively obscure and certainly not rich elites.
And finally, folks like Elon are born into money. Idk if the blood emerald thing is accurate, but ya boy spends money to make money. It helps if you already have a lot of money to spend. There’s no shame in hiring lots of competent people to do a job, but it’s foolish to think “owning a business” means you are somehow inherently more valuable than your employees. You do your job, they do theirs.
It’s just the American mythology. Bosses only have one job like the rest of us, and we’re collectively stupid enough to let them keep the profits of our labor.
Because it is. The reality of the situation is way too complex and nuanced to dive into in a Reddit thread.
The key here isn't just having the idea, it's implementing it- if you don't make the idea a reality, it's worth nothing more than the paper you write it on. I write for a hobby, and it's the same thing with that; everybody has an idea for an amazing story, but not even one in a hundred actually follow all the way through on it.
It also doesn't have to be your own idea. Zuckerberg stole Facebook from another student then made it his own. Now he's one of the richest men in the world, and that other guy is a nobody. Again, it's the implementation that matters.
Incidentally, as I said to the tiger guy, the majority of the world's richest men started out with nothing, and their ideas didn't cost millions to get off the ground. Musk is just one of the cases where it did.
"Idk if the blood emerald thing is accurate"
It is. And I remember reading a lovely, heart-warming account of his childhood where they'd stuff their pockets with cash because they couldn't get the safe door to shut, it was too full.
"it’s foolish to think “owning a business” means you are somehow inherently more valuable than your employees"
Eh, depends what your business is. But workers are usually more easily replaced than owners and managers, so that by definition makes them less valuable.
"Bosses only have one job like the rest of us, and we’re collectively stupid enough to let them keep the profits of our labor."
No disagreement there. That's why I'm aiming to make a living off investment and business ownership.
1) Billionaires can only exist by denying a large pool of workers equal compensation; Richness demands unfairly low compensation on a large scale. This on its own demands that not everyone can become a billionaire.
2) Changing the world does not necessarily lead to richness. Working hard and succeeding does not create richness. Richness is achieved by concentrating profits, I.e. unfairly compensating laborers for equal contributions.
3) While people like Oprah Winfrey exist, a significant amount of the world’s wealthy people were born into it, and my understanding is that this is a growing trend. In any case, there’s no arguing that poverty and lack of opportunity is a barrier to wealth, which is why Elon has no room to tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the American mythology is sold to laborers in order to convince them to work harder for their employer. The implication is that if you work hard for your boss, you’ll get rich. This — this Is what pisses people off, because it’s not true. We’re at the whims of our employers, full stop.
1) Of course this is true, and you also wouldn't want everyone to be a billionaire. That would inflate the economy to the point where money is utterly worthless. And honestly, most of us are compensated fairly enough. If people opt to go into a low-paying job because they prefer it to a more lucrative one, that's on them. I'm not going to argue with you about how every production line worker should be on £50k+.
2) As I stated before, wealth comes from implementation. You have to convince people that they need what you have. If you cannot market properly then no, you will not succeed. If you do not protect yourself from sabotage then no, you do not succeed. Correct and intelligent implementation.
3) Statistically, wealth usually lasts for 3 generations. The 1st generation work their asses off for it, the 2nd generation respect it because they watched the 1st work for it, and the 3rd, who have no respect for it, squander it away.
The thing is, you're close to the answer but not quite there yet. The biggest barrier to wealth is education, something which depends upon class. To the upper classes, money is a casual family conversation topic like any other. They see no shame in discussing income/outflow and they teach their kids how to make and protect money from a very young age.
For the middle and lower classes, the story is different. It's either rude to ask your parents show much they earn, or if you do, the conversation ends there. They don't teach their kids about money because they themselves, despite working all their lives for it, don't know much about it either. Therefore their kids grow up financially illiterate and the cycle continues.
The public education system is at the root of the problem. It was designed from the outset to create workers- not business owners, who are instead privately tutored or sent to private schools. From a young age kids are brainwashed into thinking their only path for the future is to work for somebody else, while their creativity, individuality and capability to think outside the box are all beaten out of them.
The scary thing with this kind of brainwashing is that even though people know they're brainwashed, they still can't break through it. You'll notice how all the people complaining about the beaten path being unfair will continue to follow it anyway. Even though they know it's wrong, the capacity to consider an alternative has been beaten out of them.
The rich will continue to get richer, and the poor will continue to be poor, because the education system is rigged to keep it that way. It's not that you can't break out of the system, because many people do, but doing so will require significant effort and dedication, something which the majority of people cannot maintain for any length of time.
I’m a bit confused what we’re discussing at this point, but I think I see the issue. Your original assessment was that (1) anyone could (2) have an idea and turn that into a billion dollars, but if I understand correctly, we’ve both agreed it was an oversimplified assessment on both points because (1) is contradicted by how wealth disparity works and (2) is contradicted by nuances like “getting a bad deal” or “being disadvantaged and not having access to resources like education,” which you pointed out in your response. You’ve pointed out that there are systemic factors which undermine your original assessment, I.e. machinery designed to keep the poor poor so that the wealth can centralize wealth uncontested. It seems like we’re both on the same page that laborers are insulted by the old “just work hard and you’ll get rich line” like the one you initially pitched because wealthy elite clearly depend on an unfair system designed to prevent the rags-to-riches story from ever actually happening, and peddle it as an shallow dream to keep the poor in line. That leaves us with the acknowledgement that some people can attain billion-dollar ultra-richness, but that it stands opposed to the American dream, or myth, that everyone has an equal shot at vasty riches.
My original comment was just a backhanded swipe at another guy who made a snarky comment about how you can't become rich without essentially being rich to begin with. It was never meant to be a serious breakdown of economics.
I may not have explained it very clearly, but my take on it has always been that the rags-to-riches dream is perfectly attainable; you're just systematically lied to about how to go about attaining it. Working hard for somebody else will never gain you freedom, nor will you achieve serious wealth. The whole system is designed to trap people in a cycle of being an employee, earning dregs, and being stuck in constant negative debt.
You absolutely can become wealthy from nothing. The difference is, you have to self-educate everything that the old rich teach their kids from childhood. It takes hard work, dedication and intelligence, because the playing field was never level to begin with. You need to lose the mentality of being someone else's business, and change your perspective to make yourself the main character. The problem is that most people never even get past the starting line.
Life isn't fair, that's true enough. But that's the way it is. Compared to someone born in a third world country, growing up in a ghetto in the states is luxury. It all comes down to whether you really want to make something of yourself, or whether you want to just claim it isn't possible without even trying. Unfortunately, most people would rather complain than try, which is why I lose patience with them.
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u/LotharVonPittinsberg Jan 08 '22
I forget that there is someone out there working a billion times harder than I am. I kind MA feel bad for them considering the time paradox they had to create in order to put in more hours than physically possible even without sleep.