
Are you rich? If so, how did you get there? - scrrr
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/d1x9c/are_you_rich_if_so_how_did_you_get_there/
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istari
People seem to consider it immoral to want to get rich too much. People are
answering in a defensive way.

Every other post here preaches the importance of true happiness, family,
friends, health, etc vs money.

I find this tiring. Imagine going to a website dedicated to the playing of
tennis at a professional level, opening a post called "How do I win?", and
having people stress the importance of enjoying the game and protecting your
long term health versus focusing on the narrow and shortsighted goal of
winning.

I for one think there's more than enough hours in the day to both get filthy
rich and be a happy, well adjusted human being, as long as you're smart about
how you go about it. Ask yourself: does that idea seem offensive?

~~~
electromagnetic
I'm sorry but your naivety abounds. I have family that have huge houses on
acres of land, but make less than me (in my early 20's). Yet here to get that
where I live, you literally have to be raking in the money.

The reason so many people have a problem with wanting to get rich is because
it is invariably at the expense of all else. This is where the naivety truly
is, because those who are rich are there because of all those 'vs money'
options. I can't work my job if I'm not healthy, I can't get a promotion if I
can't make friends, I wouldn't even have my job if it wasn't for my family,
and I wouldn't be happy if it wasn't for all of the above.

You'll never get 'filthy rich' if you don't have people to help you. IIRC
Google wouldn't even exist because the founders were _friends_ with their
professor, who encouraged them to stick with their method for the PageRank
system. AFAIK their university studies appear to have both been paid for by
their _family_.

The idea isn't necessarily offensive in a moral nature for me, it's offensive
because it's wholly naive.

~~~
istari
Being smart about trying to get rich includes getting the right people to help
you. Obviously.

Think about the richest person you personally know. Was it really "at the
expense of all else"? Or did they structure their professional and social
lives in such a way that they built upon each other over several decades?

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BjornW
I get the feeling HN has more posts on becoming rich lately and frankly I find
it not very relevant for Hackers News. Yes, it's great if your
hack/project/application allows you to gain a nice income, but personally I'm
more interested in your hack/project/application and the process around it
than the possible outcome of being financially independent. If that's your
definition of 'rich'.

~~~
alttab
I'm picturing a lot of guys who sold everything they have to move to SF to
become a start up founder / rock star. This is not unlike moving to LA and
being a waitress to tread water whilst trying to make it big in Hollywood.

A portion of these guys are probably frustrated, burned out, and lost. The
only way to reinvigorate in some eyes is to figure out how rich they need to
get before they are happy.

Never chase money because it will outrun you. Money is like girls, it only
comes in bounds once you stop giving a shit. Ever wonder why you only get hit
on by hot girls when you actually have a girlfriend?

There are stories of teenagers making their first million and they're ideas
are super-simple. I wonder if its possible some portion of the HN crowd is
trying too hard to get rich by being smart.

~~~
Retric
When a million people try X, a few hundred can get really lucky.

Tell a million people to go to take a grand to Vegas and bet their 1,000$ on 7
on a roulette table. Then have them take their winnings and do the same thing
until FU money. Some of them would become millionaires, but collectively they
would all be worse off. (They started with 1 billion.)

The secret is to look for things where risk > reward. Unfortunately writing
generic web apps is probably not it. But, the obvious cost is simply time
which people tend to undervalue, so it's not obvious if the game is rigged or
not.

~~~
jaxn
You want a risk greater than the reward? That seems like a losing strategy to
me.

What you want is a reward greater than the risk. Of course, everyone wants
that. The way to find it is to have some insight into how to make the market
more efficient (ex: a new product that solves a pain point), or to find an
under-valued asset (ex: a business that is losing money because it is
mismanaged).

Of course, municipal bonds also have a reward greater than the risk, but no
one gets rich off municipal bonds. So you do want as much risk as you can
tolerate, but you want the potential reward to be worth it.

The risk greater than reward scenario is no different than playing the
lottery. You may get rich by chance, but on average, you lose.

~~~
Retric
Yea, I was thinking -> not greater than. see:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1612073>

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dabent
It seems the theme is business ownership. Of course, Reddit might be populated
more by tech-savvy folks, leading to the talk of startups there. But overall,
those who seem to make big sums of money are those who have equity in
successful businesses. That includes the people who run used tire shops,
electrician companies and fast food franchises as well as Bill Gates and
Warren Buffet. Buffet is smart enough to have built a business that buys
equity in other businesses (not to mention having the brains to know what
equity to buy).

~~~
habitue
Remember selection bias. There is usually a fair amount of luck involved in
becoming rich, and asking rich people how they became that way just tells you
how _those_ people became rich, not necessarily how you can become rich
yourself. It's a little like asking lottery winners how they picked their
numbers (obviously becoming rich legitimately requires real work and isn't
totally random, but you get my point).

~~~
dabent
There may be some bias in the Reddit thread, which is admittedly slanted
toward sofware/tech startups, but I also draw on some other sources. The book
"The Millionaire Mind," Thomas Stanley looked at a variety of wealthy people
and found that many who accumulated wealth did so through their own (often
mundane) businesses. Others were those with high-income jobs and enough sense
to invest wisely.

The Forbes list also seems to contain those who largely built or somehow own
(through purchase, birth or connections) business equity.

My personal experience confirms this. Those I know who seem to have legitimate
wealth are a junkyard owner, a used tire store owner, an owner of an
electrician outfit, an owner of a financial services company, and a couple of
doctors who've invested well. Oh, and a retired NFL player who also didn't
blow his cash while he played.

There is luck in getting a new business to take off, for sure. I'm not trying
to downplay the risks, but I am trying to show that there is a key to how
those that made it did so.

One could also have born to Sam Walton or a Hilton or something like that. But
keep in mind that those parents made their wealth building businesses.

If someone knows of a better way to do it, or other ways, I'm all ears.
Winning the lottery works for so few, that I'm inclined to consider it
negligible.

~~~
SkyMarshal
> _"The book "The Millionaire Mind," Thomas Stanley looked at a variety of
> wealthy people and found that..."_

I haven't read that book, but it sounds like survivorship bias. Eg, there were
likely many others who also owned businesses who failed to accumulate enough
wealth to make it into his sample of the 'wealthy'.

Question is, what is the proportion of those business owners to the ones who
end up wealthy?

For example, it could just be that getting rich has more to do with living way
below your means and saving alot early in your career, giving you money to
invest and long enough horizon for that investment to pay off, regardless
whether you invest in your own business, the financial markets, your
education, etc.

But research like that will never answer the question correctly if it only
looks at sample of 'survivors'.

~~~
dabent
Yes, the survivors are the ones who accumulated wealth. If there are other
paths to accumulating wealth, they should have survived as well, but aren't
apparent in the sources I've seen so far.

There are many businesses that fail and people who've lost money on equity in
businesses. It's by no means a sure-fire way to become wealthy. But from what
I've seen it's the main method that makes it to the "wealth" finish line at
all.

What other paths have lead to "survivors" on the road to wealth? There may
well be paths other than what I've proposed. Feel free to share them with me.

------
neilk
I was born in North America to a family that lived within its means, above the
poverty line.

If you are like me, you were born rich.

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T_S_
Not the right question. Human nature works like this: If you think $5mm net
worth is enough for you might get $1mm. If the figure is $20mm, you might get
to $5mm. If you happen to achieve your goal, the figure will rise. Guaranteed.

If you focus on money exclusively you will be very unhappy. There are other
accounts, which don't send monthly statements and don't allow wire deposits. I
know plenty of wealthy people that are unhappy because they don't realize
this. For some people money is even a poison. A sudden increase in wealth
would lead to personal disaster. So you see, nobody is rich, envy is wasted
energy.

Lecture over, here's the answer: Land investments, Equity + influence in a
business.

------
jacquesm
Define 'rich'.

If you're healthy and you have people to love and that love you in return and
you get to write your own ticket in life then you are rich beyond belief.

If you crave money for its own sake you will never be rich.

~~~
illumin8
Everyone has their own version of 'rich'. In my experience the ones that are
the richest are the most driven and don't consider themselves rich no matter
how much they have. Like my grandparents who had a net worth into the $tens of
millions and yet I watched my grandma spend a half hour looking for the
cheapest can of food on an aisle at the grocery store - anything to save one
or two cents.

I think people become wealthy by being somewhat obsessed with saving money,
starting businesses, or cutting costs in all aspects of their lives. Once
they've achieved a certain amount of money, no matter how much it is, their
brain is hardwired to save, so they will probably never spend it in their
lifetime.

I also get a kick out of people responding that they are rich with a net worth
of $100K, and also have mortgages, car loans, etc, that they don't count
against their savings. This is ridiculous- they brag that they can afford a
nice car so they must be rich- no, I'm sorry, you're a poor wage slave who has
more debt than savings; you are not rich.

My definition of rich is pretty simple - if you can stop working tomorrow and
maintain your present lifestyle - I consider that wealthy. You have the
freedom to do what you want with your life. For some people this might be a
few million, for some this might be much more.

~~~
neilk
> If you can stop working tomorrow and maintain your present lifestyle - I
> consider that wealthy.

Even for most rich people, stopping work would require some adjustments. Tom
Wolfe documented this pretty well in _Bonfire of the Vanities_. A bond trader
loses his job and has to live on his savings. He acknowledges that he could
still live like a king if he just moved out of his Park Avenue apartment, but
"going backwards" is just socially inconceivable. He'd have to quit the club
that all his wife's friends are members of, etc. etc.

However, I agree to some extent with your definition of rich. I just note that
'present lifestyle' is also a variable here. This is why adjusting your
expectations provides, in a certain sense, the best ROI possible. It costs
nothing and you can become fabulously wealthy as a result.

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timcederman
Disappointed that the top voted comment there recommends Rich Dad, Poor Dad
and the rest of the Robert Kiyosaki dross.

~~~
freakwit
Disappointed that this comment does not recommend an alternative.

~~~
timcederman
I've been doing just fine without any self-help books, why do I need to
recommend an alternative?

Rich Dad, Poor Dad is particularly terrible by the way. A sampling of the
criticism: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_dad_poor_dad#Criticism>

~~~
freakwit
Some of us aren't doing so fine.

Knowing not to do something is good, but knowing how to do something is far
better.

------
winternett
I suspect majority of the people who are technically "rich" as you put it have
either inherited wealth or opportunity in life, and though they cloud it with
epic stories of hard work, they started out ahead of the game, and with money
to burn.

There are very few "rags to riches" stories these days, and little reward and
interest in ideas from normal people. The prospect of gaining financial
stability [through even magnificent short term gains] is decreasing daily in
the US. just look at foreclosures to see that people who though their lives
were successful had the success rug pulled out from under them.

We need to stop supporting mega-companies and bring development and even
retail back to the mom&pop era. Your privacy is threatened BECAUSE Google has
become a giant company, if small businesses ran individual development
projects, they wouldn't have enough time to worry about collecting personal
data on every human in the world.

We are turning into a lottery society, and the ideal of being able to be
successful is as much a myth as Santa Claus, even with hard work. Net
neutrality and measures that mega companies will take to suppress competition
will kill the possibilities for common folk to succeed even deeper into the
"unobtainable/impossible" category.

Get used to failed dreams...

Sorry to be so grim.

~~~
5teev
There's a lot of truth to this, but you'll soon be shouted down by the very
people you describe. Successful people--however they got there--only like to
attribute it to their own very hard work.

~~~
winternett
Agreed, so many hide behind the veil of hard work and its a lie, most got to
their successful points in life based on the wealth opportunity provided by
finances or friends. Society needs to begin to look at and understand wealth
in this manner. Dynasties always manage to preserve wealth in the world
because of their inner-associations, rules, plans and initiations and they
rarely recruit total outsiders.Its no tin-foil hat conspiracy, its reality.

Opportunity in life is just as beneficial as inherited wealth. You can work
for years in an industry and never gain upward mobility because of a lack of
personal connections that foster your growth and the insider information and
support that you get from those sources, such as being fraternity brothers
with a CEO, or knowing/mentoring with someone who has deeper political or
financial influence since you were a child, or by having a rich mommy and
daddy. Its so much about who you know, and how you start.

There have been several people with lots of money who failed by trying to buy
their way into high society, without first making friends, we have all
witnessed many brilliant meltdowns from Paris Hilton and others who didn't get
the memo.

We need to start looking into wealth and financial stability and creating
opportunities for the best ideas to succeed, not just the ideas with the best
marketing campaigns. Mom and Pop is where we need to go, in terms of our
future business and development outlook support to end the threats to net
neutrality and shoddy/arbitrarily wrong/and unethical big businesses
dominating our social landscape...

~~~
rick888
"Mom and Pop is where we need to go, in terms of our future business and
development outlook support to end the threats to net neutrality and
shoddy/arbitrarily wrong/and unethical big businesses dominating our social
landscape..."

Many mom and pop shops turn into big businesses. Are we going to also have a
law that prevents a business from growing to a certain size?

I also don't think I want a mom and pop store running something like cable. I
don't think they would be able to keep up with service calls/support

------
msort
Those tips for joining startups seems to be interesting:

"For your first startup:

You want a place with >10 folks but less than 200. I say this under the theory
that you are mostly working there to find challenging work and smart people. A
startup with >200 people is too close to becoming a big company (or a failure)
soon.

Be very strong in your field, if you are not yet that good practice until you
are. Try to work on the hardest projects you can find at your current
employer.

You will probably not get rich at your first startup, but you will learn at
least 3x more per week than you would at a big company. Don't obsess too much
on how many options etc... - it really doesn't matter - you are mostly going
there to do good work, learn and find folks who will make successful
startups."

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1stwealthcoach
Based on years of research,observations and trials, the most effective,
legitimate and simply way i have identified to becoming wealthy is rather
simply, straight forward and with little risk to your existing routine. And it
is no other than leveraging. leveraging is the age old proven strategy of
gaining wealth that has been and is still in practice from over 2,000 years
ago. Even Jesus used leveraging to execute his successful ministry. Leveraging
when understood and properly engaged can make you wealthy in no time. And I
mean in as little as a few years

~~~
1stwealthcoach
adekunlewealthcoach@wordpress.com

------
known
Is money a good _measure_ of wealth?

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jim_dot
My wife claims I have "value"... does that count?

