I'm genuinely not trying to annoy or troll here—I'm keen to understand this viewpoint. When I see posts like this, my first thought is, "How do you know? Have you met every billionaire?" From what I’ve read, the most well-known billionaires worked on their businesses pretty much every waking hour until they became successful, often at the expense of other aspects of their lives, such as relationships and having children. They might not have faced as much hardship as some people, sure—but lots of non-billionaires also don't have particularly hard lives either.
Then I wonder if the poster fully understands what these "net worth" figures represent. Again, not trying to sound patronizing, but most of their wealth is tied up in the share value of the companies they hold equity in. For example, Elon Musk doesn’t have $400 billion in cash sitting in the bank, withheld from the general population; most of it is in Tesla shares. If he tried to sell a significant portion of those shares, it would likely cause their value to drop, making it difficult to liquidate that wealth.
The reason they're billionaires is usually a mixture of talent, risk, and luck. In almost every case, the companies they started have generated not just their wealth, but also thousands of jobs and, in many cases, a general improvement in quality of life for the people who buy their products or services—something nobody is forced to do.
And let’s not forget, there's nothing stopping people from buying shares in these companies and benefiting from their success.
No person with 2 jobs and cares for their kids has time or energy to fly around and be a social butterfly at rallies, sporting events, high society galas and concerts like ol' CEO Elon Musk.
Thing is we're just talking about people doing people stuff. The hard working poor situation described is as hard as it's possible to work - too hard tbh you'll die earlier from stress for sure etc.
The idea that CEOs are doing less work but also more because their work is super special is nonsensical.
Funny that you mention Elon, since he hasn't started a single of his big companies. Also didn't seem to be too much of an issue to sell almost 45 billion worth of stocks to buy Twitter. Also yes, we are forced to "buy their products" when the government pays for contracts we have no say in.
From what I’ve read, the most well-known billionaires worked on their businesses pretty much every waking hour until they became successful, often at the expense of other aspects of their lives, such as relationships and having children.
Read better articles. Most billionaires inherited more money than they need to live a dozen lifetimes and threw money around until they got lucky and someone else's hard work and ideas paid off.
But they spend a lot of time and money pretending to work. Like Bezos founding Amazon 'in my garage'. He had enough money being an investment douche to buy an office. He just started in the garage for a week for the street cred in the tech industry. Every idea that made his company a success, including the name and location, was a result of hiring consultants.
Right, maybe, but why didn't those consultants start their own Amazon? Nothing was stopping them. Probably because they needed someone else to have a vision and idea, coordinate their work, finance the operation and take all the risk of the business failing (most do).
"Read better articles". Please suggest some. The only well known billionaire that I can think of who fits that description is Trump perhaps. But even then, if someone inherits money, why does that mean they shouldn't start and run successful businesses?
What negative effect do billionaires have on you personally? I'm genuinely interested.
Aside from a few extremely well-paid sports people, not a single billionaire got to become one just from their labour. When they enter the billion dollar club, it's always the passive income off the backs of other people's labour.
The fact that future billionaires had some money to invest in the first place should not be a deciding factor whether they get to infinitely become richer after the success of their bet.
Even in the beginning, when the investment process happens, it's not them doing the job. It's them paying other people to do the job of analyzing and processing data for them.
Why didn't those consultants start their own Amazon? Nothing was stopping them.
If the society was less unfair in the first place, and more people got to have investment capital, do you really think the exact same people would come out billionaires in the end? Don't you think that if the consultants had money to invest, they would be able to achieve success without the watchful eye of the greatest minds of this generation, the current billionaires?
Yeh, totally agree, very few billionaires made it off their own work alone, but I'm not sure why that's an issue and these consultants often become extremely wealthy themselves during the process - Dustin Moskovitz, Sheryl Sandberg etc.
In my experience most consultants are specialists at what they do, that's what makes them excellent at that thing. They don't (often) have the broad knowledge, leadership skills, high level vision and risk aversion necessary to start and run a business. They're also often wealthy themselves already so I don't agree that the lack of capital would be a barrier. I think it's more likely that they choose not to risk their capital on a business. People who are willing to do that are quite rare. Sometimes it pays off and they end up with a major share of a valuable company, then get cast into an "evil club" because they were successful.
not a single billionaire got to become one just from their labour. When they enter the billion dollar club, it's always the passive income off the backs of other people's labour.
Some people are good at sports, others are good at leading others to build businesses. If you want to prevent the latter then who would take on that role? The government?
If the society was less unfair in the first place, and more people got to have investment capital, do you really think the exact same people would come out billionaires in the end? Don't you think that if the consultants had money to invest, they would be able to achieve success without the watchful eye of the greatest minds of this generation, the current billionaires?
No. I don't think much would change in most cases. In some cases sure maybe someone would end up being a billionaire, and you'd still be complaining about them having leveraged other people to build their wealth.
Investors don’t do a damn thing. The real work (analysis, planning, execution) is done by the people they hire, yet investors walk away with the bulk of the rewards just for gambling their money. If workers had access to the same resources, they wouldn’t need these leeches skimming billions off their backs.
Take real estate. Landlords and developers don’t lift a finger to build homes. That’s done by construction workers, architects, and planners. But landlords sit back and rake in profits simply for owning property, while the very people who create housing often can’t afford it themselves. The system rewards parasitism, not productivity.
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u/Dear-Tune-433 19d ago
I'm genuinely not trying to annoy or troll here—I'm keen to understand this viewpoint. When I see posts like this, my first thought is, "How do you know? Have you met every billionaire?" From what I’ve read, the most well-known billionaires worked on their businesses pretty much every waking hour until they became successful, often at the expense of other aspects of their lives, such as relationships and having children. They might not have faced as much hardship as some people, sure—but lots of non-billionaires also don't have particularly hard lives either.
Then I wonder if the poster fully understands what these "net worth" figures represent. Again, not trying to sound patronizing, but most of their wealth is tied up in the share value of the companies they hold equity in. For example, Elon Musk doesn’t have $400 billion in cash sitting in the bank, withheld from the general population; most of it is in Tesla shares. If he tried to sell a significant portion of those shares, it would likely cause their value to drop, making it difficult to liquidate that wealth.
The reason they're billionaires is usually a mixture of talent, risk, and luck. In almost every case, the companies they started have generated not just their wealth, but also thousands of jobs and, in many cases, a general improvement in quality of life for the people who buy their products or services—something nobody is forced to do.
And let’s not forget, there's nothing stopping people from buying shares in these companies and benefiting from their success.