
It Takes Purpose to Become a Billionaire - denzil_correa
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/09/it_takes_purpose_become_a_bill.html
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maurits
_I 've spent some time trying to identify common traits in the Forbes list of
billionaires and other similar lists of the world's wealthiest._

Best example of survivorship bias I've seen in a long while.

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loceng
Isn't that the idea though, perhaps their purpose is what allowed them to
survive? Hard to wrap my brain around..

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maurits
Well, it is like this. The larger the initial population, the greater the
probability that long streaks of some favourable outcome will appear purely by
change.

So if I see a single monkey throw a die that consistently lands on 6, I might
be inclined to reason that something special is going on with the die, or the
monkey his throwing. But if I let a billion monkeys throw a die repeatedly,
the probability of having long streaks of consecutive '6-es' from a random
monkey, is virtually 1, by randomness alone.

Monkey's with streaks you then select out of the initial billion, the rest you
discard and then you write about how all hot throwing monkeys like bananas.

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imjk
Do those categories come off as very broad and generic to anyone else. I feel
like these categories can be applied to many companies and their founders,
most of whom will not become billionaires.

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fruzz
I think people need to get away from this mentality that you deserve to be a
billionaire because of your qualities.

Being a billionaire has very little to do with you. It is more a testament to
the wealth of your parents, the gender you were born in, the colour of your
skin, and luck. I have no doubt many possess wonderful qualities too, but that
doesn't set billionaires apart from the rest of the population. It's what
makes them a part of it.

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JonFish85
Great! Glad we can just discount an extreme attention to detail but also the
ability to look past the trees to see the forest. I'm sure that having the
knack for seeing an opportunity and jumping at it is pretty much just a blip
on the radar. And the ability to convince your friends & coworkers that your
dream is do-able and great is second to just _shrug_ luck.

There are some billionaires who inherited their money. There are some who
lucked out with investments. Your last statement makes no sense. What sets
them apart from the rest of the population definitely does involve their
"wonderful qualities".

Sure, luck plays a big role in things. It takes a combination of other things
too: hard work, an unwillingness to settle for "meh, good enough", an ability
to convince other people (employees, investors) to believe in you and the
ability to know your own weaknesses and bring in people to solve those
weaknesses. Let's not just lump these all into the "and the rest" category.

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justinsteele
I just read a book that I think would be enjoyable for anyone who has either
internally or externally debated these things; "Outliers: The Story of
Success" by Malcolm Gladwell.

It's easy to credit them with hard work and think they deserve it. The biggest
thing I notice is how many thousands (millions) of other people in the world
have the exact same traits ("Seeing past the trees", "Ability to convince
other people to believe in you", etc) and fail in our world.

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JackFr
Empty platitudes, not particularly well written.

"Make the world more relevant" \-- what does that even mean?

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a3voices
"1\. Making the world more beautiful."

I think the world was more beautiful before there were billionaires. Nature is
being quickly destroyed by humans, and capitalism isn't helping.

