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Comment by johnnyanmac | Hacker News Reader

> Earning money nowadays is all about having access to money which comes out of a safe money printer.

I argue that's always been true. Most of the big tech we know today came from very privileged backgrounds that allowed them to take risks that'd be unthinkable for many of us. drop out of college early, run 2-3 failed business to the ground, being booted out of one company and come back later to the same company as an executive, etc.

It takes money (or a lot of your time) to make money, that's always been true. The money it takes these days are just so high.

Wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, and I'm sorry you gotta navigate this way. I still have some decades to try and get something I can truly own be sustainable, so I want to at least make use of my youth while I have it.

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We are also only counting the winners who all took huge risk. Many more took huge risk in the past and lost everything.

It strikes me as rather absurd to believe it was better in the past when capital was much harder to come by.

Imagine trying to get startup funding in the late 80s when a person with capital could get 9% annualized on a short term US government bill. Good luck with that.

> Many more took huge risk in the past and lost everything.

sure, but when you have connections or your own finances in the millions, it's a lot harder to truly lose "everything" in the same way a missed rent check can actually cost some working class person their home. They will lose a lot but not be out on the streets per se.

Many of these people aren't dumb, they won't use their own money to finance this. It just better helps them get investor money to potentially mismanage.

>It strikes me as rather absurd to believe it was better in the past when capital was much harder to come by.

it was arguably better for people who had capital to begin with. Money begets money, that's always been true in every time and society.

for truly scrappy startups, it varies. You could truly innovate with 2-3 buddies out of your garage and make a multi-million dollar business, "self made". Fewer would be chosen, but the line would be lower as well.

There's more money flowing, but you also need so much more to get off the ground c. 2024. But you can reasonably chance it an self-publish. I don't think it's objectively better or worse, just different. I argue that if you do need money than it is in fact worse though.

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