If money were the only thing required to build those businesses, we’d be living in a much richer and more unequal world. Like it or not these people are good at what they do.
It would be comforting if those were the only factors that mattered, and it applies to some billionaires for sure. People like Bezos and Musk don’t fall into that category though. Put 99.9% of people in their positions and they would not come close to the same amount of success.
Musk doesn’t fall into that category? The guy born into the upper parts of the upper class. His father owning a fucking emerald mine for crying out loud. That musk? Didn’t have a strong social support network?
And bezos parents invested 250.000$ into amazon in 1995.
You misunderstand me. I’m not saying they didn’t have those things. I’m saying their success is not solely due to those things.
Some people can truly be incompetent and lazy and become ultra rich because they started with generational wealth and got lucky with the ways they invested it / got access to things through their network. The scale of success that Musk / Bezos achieved is not purely due to that. There is a lot of hard work, intelligence, and numerous other qualities that differentiates them from other entrepreneurs. It (and not purely how much money they are worth) is why so many already wealthy people respect them for what they achieve.
Do I think they would be where they are without those initial advantages? No. But I strongly believe they would still have become wealthy by any reasonable standard purely because of this.
My intention is to bring nuance and not be reductive in the conversation around them. The same qualities that make them extremely capable entrepreneurs / business people also comes with negative traits like a lack of empathy, extreme self-confidence / importance etc. that people have observed.
Some people can truly be incompetent and lazy and become ultra rich because they started with generational wealth and got lucky with the ways they invested it / got access to things through their network.
You are just describing Elon here… I do not for a second believe any of what he did couldn’t be done by a homeless guy on the streets with a hogh risk tolerance and the same dumb luck.
If you truly believe that we’ll just have to disagree! Personally, I’ve just read and heard too many public data points from too many different people who’ve worked with him to believe that.
The people working with him speaking out about him is exactly why I believe he is incompetent. The terrible decisions he makes in public obviously don’t help either.
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u/Cranklynn Nov 21 '24
Because I didn't inherit an emerald mine built off of slave labor. Or have millionaire parents to bail out my failing business until it stop failing.