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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

> Anyone who doesn't suffer any real consequences. Having parents with a lot of money makes it not matter all that much.

You're not going to starve in America if you lose all your money.

Besides, Elon's dad at one point invested in Elon's company. Elon was already a success in business by then. From $20,000, he became the richest man in the world. All by luck! Pretty amazing!

Me, I could scrape up $20,000. Could I turn it into the richest man in the world? Nope. I would never have taken the risks Musk did. Nor do I have his work ethic. Nor am I as smart as he is. So I'm not envious of him.

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> You're not going to starve in America if you lose all your money.

claim, meet data: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10990269/#:~:text=%...

> You're not going to starve in America if you lose all your money.

Walk down my street with me and I’ll show you.

> Nor am I as smart as he is.

Are you kidding?

I've had the opportunity to know and work with many people who are way smarter than I am. I know one when I see one.

Lots of people seem to think that Musk has blundered his way from success to success. Nobody blunders $20,000 into richest man in the world.

Being in the right place at the right time with the right connections and not having your equity diluted helps.

There are plenty of “smart” people who aren’t rich.

I live in New Orleans. I went to the same school he did. Thank you for conveying my point.

I see nowhere in Musks history that he went to school in New Orleans

I meant as WalterBright, and the school wasn’t in New Orleans.

I could have been a billionaire many separate times. I failed to notice the opportunity.

> There are plenty of “smart” people who aren’t rich.

Of course. And the biggest barriers to success are:

1. not getting educated in what you want to do

2. being risk averse

3. not willing to commit to the work needed

4. doing drugs and alcohol

5. believe your friends and acquaintances telling you you can't make it

This forum is part of ycombinator, an outfit looking for startups to fund. You're already in the right place at the right time.

You can either not be hoarding, or you can be richest man in the world. You can't have it both ways.

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