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Comment by vpilcx | Hacker News Reader

In another discussion, someone tried to make the argument that Buffet was a real-life rags to riches story. Like, my guy, his father worked as a stock broker, and he used to hang out at his dad's office when he was a kid, and his dad eventually became a Congressman. I don't know why people think that's "rags to riches".

I might be misinterpreting the facts but Gates got the deal to sell DOS to IBM because his Mom knew someone or was on the board. Bezos went from a successful career in finance to start Amazon. Zuckerberg started Facebook at -Harvard- and partly, the success of Facebook was predicated on Harvard's social prestige.

I just don't understand where people come up with these weird bootstrap narratives from.

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They're not saying that he was poor.

They're saying that he didn't start a billionaire. He multiplied his wealth by a factor of a thousand or more.

Yes, but the point is that they started with wealth. Multiplying 1 mil to 1 billion is more reasonable possible than 1k to 1 mil.

Simply because if you've such wealth already you're most likely in a position to take risks, etc.

I don't think that's true at all really, there are like 500,000 millionaires in my town alone.

A billion is actually just a lot of money, there's a much more finite amount of room at the top.

All you need to do to make a million quid in the UK is get a 75th percentile job and save half of it. After a few decades you are now a millionaire. I mean, everyone can't do it, but it's not some unfathomable task.

In the US I imagine it's even easier. Your median income is lower but the top end is insane.

>> All you need to do to make a million quid in the UK is get a 75th percentile job and save half of it. After a few decades you are now a millionaire. I mean, everyone can't do it, but it's not some unfathomable task.

I agree that it is possible, but it is sadly an impossible task for most. That's my point above: for those who have wealth it is easy to grow it. It takes money to make money.

My other point was that those who have a billion started with millions.

Some did. Most started as multimillionaire.

The ways one can use to multiply millions by a thousand aren't open to people that only owns thousands. And you really don't want to multiply your possessions by a thousand if they are negative.

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