All billionaires under 30 have inherited their wealth, research finds | Hacker News Reader

All billionaires under 30 have inherited their wealth, research finds

theguardian.com

89 pointspaulpauper61 comments

Why such a high bar?

How many even earn (from scratch) $100 Million by age 30?

One would only have to save an average of $1000/hr, 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week, for a brief 10 years to reach just that level.

Clearly it’s too easy.

I wonder how you'd classify Kylie Jenner. On one hand, she's inherited the Jenner name and I'm sure wealth, however my understanding is she works quite hard and has earned a lot of her own money.

She founded her company from the money she got given from TV work. She was given the money, the brand and the audience. She could have gotten rich(er) selling flavored bubble gum.

There is no way Jenner would have been in a position to apply that hard work to such a profit without the inheritance.

The myth of America is that anyone can be a billionaire, if they are talented and put in the work. This is not true.

Billionaire? You're exaggerating.

"You, too, can be a thousand-aire!"

With enough debt you will even be allowed to live in a house!

Self made doesn't have to mean being an orphan and starting with $0. Zuckerberg and Gates for example had more support and opportunity than 99.9999% of the planet (Harvard education, wealthy parents, access to computers, strong network), yet they clearly deserve full credit for their achievements. Kylie Jenner is no different. There are plenty of celebrity kids out there, but none who founded a cosmetics company that was valued at $1.2 billion.

Damn they spoon fed you this narrative and you ate it right up.

I was quite surprised by OP's comment too. Seems like media does work..

I just think there is a much more interesting conversation to be had is all, yah no shit everyone under 30 who has a billion bucks got it from their family, that's a very boring conversation to have, I thought mine was a bit more intellectually curious, nothing more than that really. :)

I'd say she qualifies as self made, but her current net worth is estimated to be $680 million.

She absolutely does not qualify as self-made.

Don't get me wrong, building a sustainable beauty brand on is no small feat. However, her family name alone is like inheriting a gigantic free marketing budget.

Remember that things that aren't money can have a lot of value, like followers and viewers.

Let's say right now I figured out how to produce the greatest beauty products in the world. They beat all competitors by a significant margin and cost less. They're available on my website right now.

How much money would I have to spend in order to start from zero and sell a few million units? It would definitely cost me thousands if not millions to start a national advertising campaign. Kylie didn't have to spend anywhere near as much as other equivalent companies to build its sales.

So by that logic can anyone who is not a homeless orphan with nothing to their name be self made? Even then, they'd probably get disqualified if a passer by took pity on them and bought them a free meal.

Well no because my having received a free meal isn't something I can leverage into considerable loans or investor interest.

Additionally, well, yes - 'self made' is a myth when our societies and economies are a network. Nothing occurs in a vacuum.

There is a pretty broad spectrum that encompasses almost every human alive between homeless orphan and Jenner

Yes but where you choose to draw the line on that spectrum is completely arbitrary.

That's why I brought up Kylie. I'm surprised people are so angry about it, I was basically just trying to say hey there is an interesting other conversation to be had here. I tend to agree with you, sure Kylie has a huge leg up, but there is some ratio, and some up and some down... in like... someone might be born kid of a B list rapper and inherent $2MM.. take it to zero in 5 years, or $100MM in 5 years. If Kylie gets to a $1B net worth by the time she is 28.9, personally, I'd give her some cheer, she agreed to choices that have been net positive for her consistently for a sustained period of time, and when she gets there, I would be fine to agree she is a billionaire under 30 who didn't inherit her billions. Oh, and i'll also add, I suspect she will make it to that number before she is 30, by some measures she's actually already there.

It it, but you could probably just say P90 and below is self made.

Well, this is why I brought up "where do we draw the line?" I am quite aware that the whole debate is about where we decide to draw the line.

However, you're obviously extending the logic far beyond the way I intended to extend it.

I'm really talking about something closer to "a median upbringing." Someone who saved up an attainable sum just by working a typical job or by obtaining a modest "middle class attainable" sized loan to seed the business.

Kylie started with a much larger seed: complimentary marketing worth actual millions. Not a $25,000 loan that was paid back via single store sales to start a sandwich shop like Jimmy Johns. (Which, I realize, is a decent chunk of change in 1982, but it's basically nothing compared to what Kylie started with)

What you don't know is how many celebrities also inherited a brand but did not or could not make a successful business out of it.

What you imply is that by having a large seed, succeeds was guaranteed.

My take is that if somebody else getting the same inheritance wasn't able to achieve success, then it counts as self made for the one that did succeed (with said inheritance).

I just don’t find this a useful comparison for nearly anyone interested in becoming a self-made person, hoping to draw inspiration. I’m sorry, but growing up in a very wealthy family, inheriting a large number of followers, and starting with a huge amount of influence… that’s not something most people will have. Beyond that, you have a massive, massive cushion to take risks, to try and fail, and to try different business models. And on top of that, you are taught directly from your successful parents how to start these lifestyle businesses. These are all crucial parts of success that most people don’t have access to.

It’s a lot more useful and interesting to draw the line earlier.

> My take is that if somebody else getting the same inheritance wasn't able to achieve success, then it counts as self made for the one that did succeed (with said inheritance).

That just redefines "self-made" to mean anyone that succeeded, which isn't very useful.

There might not be a clear place to draw the line between richie rich and starving orphan in 3rd world country, but Kylie Jenner is easily one of the most obvious examples of not-self-made out there.

Selena Gomez is supposedly worth more due to ownership in her own makeup line, though she is older.

If Kylie or any other Jenner were a business for sale, the Jenner name (brand) alone carries significant value as an intangible asset.

When and who was the last time a person who came from proportionately "nothing" became a billionaire? Maybe by nothing I mean parents with no savings account.

Not surprising? It's virtually impossible to be a dollar billionaire under 30 without inheritance. Heck, the average 30-year-old doesn't even have close to $10 million.

Only an extremely small number of people have done that, e.g., Palmer Luckey and Kylie Jenner.

Without inheritance. Or crime.

Can you name the <30 years old criminal who stole $1 billion+, save for SBF?

Elizabeth Holmes

Paper wealth that evaporated. Theranos didn’t even raise up to $1 billion in total.

A bit above 30 (and $70M when the Bitcoin was stolen, appreciating to $4.5B while the stolen assets were being held), but Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30260787

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1470186/dl

It's virtually impossible to be a dollar billionaire, period

> Heck, the average 30-year-old doesn't even have close to $10 million.

I'm going to do a wild guess here and say that the average 30-year-old, outside the valley bubble, doesn't even have $1 million.

HN bias in these statements is wild. The average 30-year old probably has closer to $5k in savings and somewhere around that in net worth.

Definitely crazy bias, but it isn't that low.

The Federal Reserve does a triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, in 2022 the median net worth for someone under 35 was $39,000. The average net worth for someone under 35 was $183,500, https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf23.pdf.

So yes, it is true that the average 30 year old does not even have close to either $10 million or $1 million.

Understandable for the US. Still, the median is closer by orders of magnitude to 5k than 1M.

I was loosely estimating the numbers for the Western world, including West Europe, in my head. I don’t know that many people who have significantly above $5k/£4k savings in the UK.

The average worldwide net worth for 30 year-olds is probably a lot more meager than my estimate.

Net worth doesn't just include savings, it includes home equity and even equity in vehicles. In the US, right around 50% of 30-34 year olds are homeowners. If someone has been making payments on a house they will be adding to their net worth, especially recently with the rise in housing prices. For non-rich people in the US, the majority of their net worth will be their home equity.

It does include debt and its price though. So you may have a mortgaged home but still hover around zero net worth for a little bit.

Looks like Adam Neumann was under 30 when he became a billionaire.

This moment in time figure is silly. What about the kids today that become billionaires before 30?

Am I supposed to find this offensive?

A 30 year old has had around 12-14 years since their first summer job.

Compound growth over 20, 30, 40, 50 years is far greater.

What about this guy - https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/23/self-made-billionaire-austin...? He is still 29.

Impressive story! It certainly does feel self made.

But I'm going to guess that his net worth is entirely based on his ownership in LAZR, which is currently worth 1/3 of when this article was published (putting his net worth at 500M assuming he hasn't been diluted further).

I'd argue that a $100,000 grant from an investor like Peter Theil isn't functionally all that different than an inheritence in all the ways that matter.

Remember that recent Paul Graham article posted here advising students to get into the most selective school they could for networking reasons? Not because those schools have a better education.

If this guy went to a different university, I bet they would have never had the opportunity to demonstrate their venture to Peter Thiel. Getting into Stanford is itself is something that functions a lot like an "inheritance." The mere fact that you are there is a gigantic leg up.

To me, "self-made" would be building a profitable business completely bootstrapped with either personal funds or maybe at most a small business loan from a bank.

But then again, this whole distinction of "self-made" is a bit of an exercise on where you draw that line.

It sounds like a damning indictment of capitalism until you read the part where it says that there are only 15 of them in the entire world.

I mean, what's the takeaway in your mind? If there was 1 person in the whole world that owned half its wealth, would you find it un-damning because it's just 1 person?

If the problem is that there aren't enough self-made billionaires, it's bad journalism to take an arbitrary slice of 15 out of 2700 of them and act as if they're representative of the problem. We could redistribute their wealth and everyone in the world would maybe get a couple of dollars.

I think if someone wants to make a point about whether billionaires are self-made or not, they should look at a more representative sample.

> If the problem is that there aren't enough self-made billionaires [...]

It should be obvious the problem they have is with too many non-self-made billionaires. Not too few self-made ones.

> We could redistribute their wealth and everyone in the world would maybe get a couple of dollars.

We often think of the wealth redistribution of billionaires as a liquidation exercise, but there are so many other methods of ensuring income equality that have nothing to do with that particular thought exercise.

The businesses could be broken up, they could be partially or fully surrendered to employee ownership, they could be forced to operate in certain ways, they could have different wage/equity requirements compared to non-oligopoly businesses. The options are endless.

Heck, we could just tax net worth to effectively force divestment.

It's pointless to even try and calculate this number. There are ~3000 billionaires in the world. Most/all of them have children, and I'd wager a large chunk of these children have access to >$1B of the wealth, whether on paper or not. The only special thing about these 15 is that their parents are dead and/or their inheritance or trust fund has already kicked in.

Interesting they reference Forbes for this. Based on the title seeming wrong I found this from 2 years ago, from Forbes.

It mentions a mix, with the self-made ones outnumbering the inherited ones. While some will have aged out, the original post headline sounds a bit like rage bait.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/colehorton/2022/04/05/the-world...

From that list you linked:

- FTX imploded for fraud and is now worthless - Bolt is now worth only $300M - Not sure about Brex

Why are they arbitrary limiting it to under 30? Why not 40 or 50 or all of them? It seems kind of weird to me.

You have to pick some number, if you take an age limit too high it becomes 'less' of a story.

That is my point. They choose 30 specifically to make a story out of it.

Wouldn't some of them be self-made if they increased the age? "None" is powerful.

That is my point. They choose 30 specifically to make a story out of it.

I mean, obviously? Is that nefarious? There's a story for 30 that probably doesn't exist for 40... should it not be written about?

It is a nonstory. Somebody who is 30 probably has not had enough time to become a billionaire even if they would by the time they are 40. It just seems like they are trying to make a point, but don't actually state what their point is.

Clearly, the world needs more Zuckerbergs.

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