Letter to young people by Carlos Slim | Hacker News Reader

Letter to young people by Carlos Slim

japo.posterous.com

35 pointsacangiano28 comments

There's a (very sad) saying in México that goes like these: "El que no tranza no avanza".

That phrase could be loosely translated as "That who doesn't do dishonest deeds in prejudice of other people cannot advance in life".

If that's a philosophy that the you want to learn, then please take Carlos Slim as a role model because he is the poster child of that ideology.

Whenever I hear the news that Carlos Slim is the richest man in the world I cringe. Bill Gates? I think the guy somewhat deserves his millions, Microsoft business practices may be morally-gray, but they have helped shape the world the way it is now. Bill Gates had change the world.

Carlos Slim has done nothing, absolutely nothing, good for the world, not even for Mexico. He is the product of a corrupt system whose only merit is being the best exploiter of his people.

If this looks like a good role-model, you are going to love Joaquin Guzman Loera. I'm waiting his letter to the young people.

I don't know if you remember Telmex (the telephone company that "was given away"/"was bought very cheaply"), but it sucked, the lines were down all the time, service was really slow, you could be left without a phone line for more than a couple of days. That doesn't happen anymore.

He transformed that company (albeit being a monopoly) into a fairly good one. With the excess cash he generated he launched a mobile phone company that is one of the world's largest, and invested in numerous other businesses transforming them from badly performing ones into better businesses.

He was certainly lucky, smart and well connected when he bought Telmex, but all the execution afterwards was not easily handed to him.

Personally i'd love if his companies ran the water distribution or trash collection, he'd probably turn them into better performing and less corrupt businesses.

I think everybody expects so much of him, but he doesn't care, he is wired for making money and an excellent example of a pragmatic businessman. Compare him with the Russian oligarchs and you'll see how bad it could be. I really think he is a good and well meaning man.

This letter is a gem, Carlos Slim might be bad man or whatever, but this letter is genuine good advice.

Don't fall prey to ad hominem, judge the letter for its content not for its author.

yeah? some of the Nazi propaganda also sounds very reasonable, and even "inspiring". The context is important, my friend.

This is the third or fourth example of Goodwin's law this week.

This letter reads like some cliched copy he had written up by his staff. In most cases, 'his' thoughts are never carried out for more than a sentence or two. Where's the content?

Am I missing something?

Wow so much bullshit it's overflowing. Bland, boring "advice". I'd much rather hear some of his REAL life stories.

How exactly do you manage to amass such a humongous amount of money from one of the poorest, most corrupt countries on Earth?

How do you stay alive instead of falling pray to the crime families running half of the said country.

How do you grow in under a corrupt government and corrosive business climate?

That's what I would REALLY like to hear. I bet they'd be some pretty interesting teachings...

I'd be more interested in that as well, but I wouldn' call this "bullshit." I enjoy it for the same reason I enjoy reading and rereading Max Ehrmann's Desiderata, Rudyard Kipling's If--, etc.

Truisms blindly followed are not worth much, but the reevaluation of truisms in the context of your experiences can be very worthwhile.

My view on success is similar to my view on leaders, the scale of success is dependent on circumstance and luck.

Just because he is the richest man in the world doesn't mean his advice is better or worse than any other moderately successful businessmen. So you should judge the merits of the letter by it's content, which I don't think was very good.

I totally agree. In this particular case, Slim became over-the-top wealthy from buying the monopoly "Telmex" right after it was privatized--with some help from the corrupt government.

From wikipedia:"controversially, the payment itself took place over the course of the next several years, using money earned by the phone service."

I'm a little taken aback by your criticism. Did we even read the same letter? What part of (and I paraphrase) "stay busy, keep a balanced home/professional life, live with positive attributes and avoid the bad ones" did you have a problem with? Granted the other stuff on the page was off-topic, but Carlo's letter itself seemed like excellent advice to me.

Yeah, I know. He was really brave to go against the people who say you should burn out before you're 40, and live consumed with guilt, regret, and envy.

Pretty funny considering this is a site centered around start-ups and their culture. It's easy to be flippant, but I know too many people who have done just exactly that -- burned out before 40, and regretful about their choices. Talk with any 30 year old game developers lately?

> country of origin is NOT a reason why some people remain poor. Carlos Slim Helu is SOLID PROOF.

This is probably obvious to everyone here but I'd like to point out that one case out of a 100-million population is statistically completely insignificant. He is not a solid proof of anything.

As per the wikipedia[1]: "By the time he was 26 years old, his net worth was $40 million".

Wow!

Its not very clear how. From the follow on link it appears that this was from investing in stocks.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim#Early_life

The letter is good. The sales message at the end? Not so much.

Sorry, I automatically skipped that part. Here is a clean link: http://www.carlosslim.com/carta_ing.html

Can a moderator replace the link for me? Thanks.

Neither is the fact that he's ripping off Robert Kiyosaki with his email (richdad...@)

When you're in the race for richest man in the world, it also helps not to believe in charity, especially when you're up against the likes of Bill Gates, who foolishly gives away billions.

Perhaps Bill Gates doesn't think of himself as being primarily in that race?

Scratch that-- I had read something that said he didn't believe in charity... but he really just doesn't believe in aspects of it, or rather believes that capitalistic ventures are more beneficial.

It's not like Gates is just handing out 5$ bills and saying "Go get yourself some meth!"

Charity involves research on where your dollars are going as well as the giving. At Gates's level, it involves program creation, not just handing out cash.

I'm a big fan of Bill... not as big a fan of the general lack of a way to show sarcasm on the Internet.

One of his quotes on wikipedia:

"When you live for others' opinions, you are dead. I don't want to live thinking about how I'll be remembered"

Its funny how this quote and the things he says on the letter directly contradict themselves.

Title is incorrect, he's now the richest man in the world. (Forbes 2010 list)

Carlos slim country of origin is leban (to which he returned just few days ago) and not mexico.

His father was born in Lebanon. Slim was born in Mexico City, Mexico.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim#Early_life

Best parts:

* Success is not about doing things well or even very well, or being acknowledged by others. It is not an external opinion, but rather an internal status. It is the harmony between the soul and your emotions, which requires love, family, friendship, authenticity and integrity.

* You are privileged within society due to your talents and efforts, and for the best reason, your own worth. To be as exceptional as you are is a privilege, but it also entails many risks that can have an impact on values that are much more important than professional, economic, social or political "success". Emotional strength and stability are in the interior life, and in avoiding emotions that erode the soul such as envy, jealousy, arrogance, lust, selfishness, vengeance, greed and laziness, which are a poison that is ingested little by little.

* When you give, do not expect to receive. "Fragrance clings to the hand that gives the rose," says a Chinese proverb. Do not allow negative feelings and emotions to control your mind. Emotional harm does not come from others; it is conceived and developed within ourselves.

* Do not mix up your values or betray your principles. Life’s road is very long, but it is traveled fast. Live the present intensely and fully, do not let the past be a burden, and let the future be an incentive. Each person forges his or her own destiny and it may influence reality. Do not ignore it.

* Live with positive feelings and emotions such as love, friendship, loyalty, courage, joy, good humor, enthusiasm, peace, serenity, patience, trust, tolerance, prudence and responsibility. Do not allow their opposites to invade your soul, may they pass quickly from your mind, do not allow them to stay there, banish them. You will make mistakes many times, it is normal and human; but try to make them small, then accept, correct and forget them. Do not be obsessed by them; heaven and hell are within us. What is most valuable in life does not cost anything but is very precious: love, friendship, nature and what man has been able to achieve with it; the forms, colors, sounds, smells that we perceive with our senses can only be appreciated when we are emotionally awake.

* Live without fear and guilt; fear is the worst feeling men can have, it weakens them, inhibits action and depresses them. Guilt is a tremendous burden in our lives, the way we think and act. Guilt and fear make the present difficult and obstruct the future. To fight them, let us have good sense and accept ourselves as we are, with our realities, our merits and our sorrows.

* Staying occupied displaces preoccupation and problems, and when we face our problems, they disappear. Thus, they make us stronger every day. We should learn from failure, and successes should be silent incentives. Act always as your conscience dictates, because it never lies. Fear and guilt will then be minimal. Do not block yourself in, do not ruin your life, live it with intelligence, with soul and senses aware and on the alert; get to know their manifestations and train yourselves to appreciate and enjoy life.

* Work well done is not only a responsibility to yourselves and society; it is also an emotional need.

* At the end we depart with nothing, we leave behind only our work, family and friends, and, perhaps, a positive influence which we have planted.

I don't know who wrote this letter, maybe Slim asked someone to write this letter, but whoever wrote this letter was a wise man. This letter has totally blown me away, it's wisdom packed into a few lines.

This letter doesn't sound very Slim-like to most of us, at least according to the picture the media draws of him, but that doesn't matter - its the contents that truly matter. (don't fall prey to ad hominem)

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