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Comment by corkill | Hacker News Reader

"And getting rich requires lots of luck."

No it requires making something useful to other people that you can sell to them. You really should read the book.

Airbnb (hardwork and launching 4 times? nah just luck) Dropbox (solving a hard problem? nah just luck)

"That's why it's better to be frugal and invest wisely" This concept is explored in depth in the book.

It's called wealth in a wheelchair and is highly dependent on the stock market and property market (things you don't control performing favourably for you).

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It's not either "just luck" or no luck involved. Sure, most people who do get rich try and work very hard. The question is how big a proportion of people who work hard do get rich. If it is only 1% and it cannot be predicted in advance who it is, then there certainly is an element of luck.

Not entering in the actual issue, just noticing that every time one needs to make an example of a wildly successful company, most of the times is Airbnb and Dropbox.

I know full well that there are many more examples, but I think the total of millionaire-making companies compared to the total is abysmal.

Does it mean that only those at Airbnb and Dropbox (and Whatsapp, Twitter, etc...) worked hard and well ?

I think luck still plays a role.

Working hard and solving problems is a necessary condition, not sufficient.

You're biasing your view to the startups that made it. Many startups also worked hard, made something useful and the founders didn't get rich (for some definition of "rich").

This sort of backward reasoning doesn't work very well. Yes, Dropbox solves a hard problem. Plenty of other people have solved hard problems and didn't make much money. You have to explore the factor that differentiates the cases if you want your post to have any real substance.

The parent post would probably propose that this differentiating factor is, at least partially, luck.

>and property market

And yet, he suggests buying property to rent as a method of the Fastlane. Ask a small-time landlord if renting their property in a halfway efficient market is making them rich.

I don't have a problem with the first half of the article, discussing the philosophy of getting rich. It's when he seems to delve into practical advice (write a book! rent out a house!) that the author seems to lack a sense of financial matters.

Every real estate investor/landlord I know has worked up to a 7 figure net worth pretty quickly. Started with single family homes or a few duplexes, traded them up/reinvested cash flow, and eventually settled with a few multifamily complexes. Property management does the work, they collect the check. It's not easy, mind you, but it is worth the efforts. The rental market is the most solid investment vehicle out there. The market may go up and down, but it's always trending upward. Can't say the same about the stock market.

>The market may go up and down, but it's always trending upward. Can't say the same about the stock market.

Yes, you absolutely can say the same about the stock market. In fact, the historical compound annual growth rate of the market, adjusted for inflation, is almost 7%. That's over 100+ years. I don't have the data in front of me, but I'll bet the market returns crush real estate returns over that period.

You'll have to explain how these people managed to accumulate such wealth "quickly" through real estate, unless it involved flipping houses during one of the biggest housing bubbles in economic history, of which there were massive amounts of losers on the other end of these transactions (aka bagholders). This era produced a ton of "real estate gurus", but it will prove to be an anomalous period. But, taking the economic environment in context , it was a great, clever way to make a fortune; akin to telling someone to sell Tulips in 1640. I just think the idea that "buy real estate, get rich" is naive. The real trick is figuring out the next real estate, or Tulip, early in the cycle.

TINSTAAFL. There is nothing magical about expected real estate returns, and they are in line with any other investment vehicle when adjusted for risk.

thank you for this reply. it's amazing how so many people think success is luck.

It's not just luck. But a big portion of it is luck.

Lots of people had made social networks in the past. Why did Facebook succeed? Partly because it was well designed. But also because it was in the right place at the right time to build momentum early on. That's the lucky part.

Success takes hard work. But hard work isn't enough.

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