Musk is the best possible evidence of this - an incredibly stupid, fragile edgelord born to other peoples' wealth, lucked his way into more on the backs of others' work. Now, everything he touches loses billions.
Not an Elon Fan but saying the richest man is the world was just incredible lucky is a little ridiculous. I am sure luck played a part but I don't think Musk is the Inspector Clouseau of the business world. At least not in the 90s and 2000s.
Yeah I agree, I don't think it's all luck either. But I do paint him in a bad light for not doing well with what he had in his hands. I'll probably never know what kinds of unseen pressure one tends to experience as a billionaire but he's really not doing well, to put it kindly.
I read a comment suggesting that you (yes, you!) would probably do a better job managing Twitter.
A cat could be dropped into the job, spend the whole day licking its arsehole, and still do a better job than Musk. All he had to do was shut his dumb mouth and spend his money, but he's incapable of even that.
It is a meritocracy .... whoever can be the most ruthless, greedy, selfish, egotistical, ignorant, arrogant, immoral, unethical and wicked can more easily become enormously wealthy.
For someone with a bit of ability, knowledge and training, they can easily make thousands fleecing the elderly, poor people, widows, or the mentally challenged. It takes a really ruthless person to do it but it is relatively easy money.
You can also become a drug dealer and buy trade and sell illegal, immoral and life destroying drugs and easily make a lot of money fast.
Someone in a developing country can also start a small business based on slave labor, children or indentured workers paid little or no money.
And that's just the bottom of the barrel. Professionals in first world countries deal with these people to generate wealth for themselves. Then billionaires sit on top making more money on those below them ...... all the wealth if you follow it is based on taking advantage of weaker individuals. The whole system is based on taking advantage of lesser people.
It's a meritocracy ... a meritocracy of immortality, whoever can become the most depraved gets to win the world.
EDIT: .... it's amazing because I just finished watching this the other night
https://youtu.be/-FcRj3HHS7I?si=-7hua35Ad3npmsoo
Basically a con artist that stole money from elderly, physically disabled and mentally challenged people, made millions and now lives the lap of luxury outside the country and no one can do anything about it. The infuriating part of it is, it wasn't just him, there was a whole chain of lawyers, bankers, financial people and professionals that either enabled him, supported him or just allowed him to do what he did because everyone was making money .... off of poor people!
The rich don't magically get rich by being nice to others ... they get rich because they abandoned their morals a long time ago and collect their money from as many poor people as possible, either directly, indirectly, secretly or distantly. And the wealthier they become, the more easily it is for them to do it and get away with it.
The system is built for abuse and moral depravity .... is it any wonder we are destroying ourselves little by little.
While the system does select for psychopathic behaviors, it's not a meritocracy because you don't need to be exceptional at being ruthless, greedy, selfish, egotistical, ignorant, arrogant, immoral, unethical and wicked to become enormously wealthy. There are plenty of deplorable people who never make it big under capitalism. It's mostly just a birth lottery. People who are lucky enough to be born into money, who end up having family connections, and are plugged into the oligarchy are the ones who statistically make it.
And there are actual studies showing that luck is the major factor
I think all the temporarily embarrassed billionaires are downvoting you. In their meritocracy they will be considered the worthy who can take everything, not these imposters like bezos. (bezos is a cunt...)
Seriously. Jeff Bezos got super-rich by literally being bad at his job.
How?
He was VP of a hedge fund, and assigned the project of investigating the potential of online commerce on the nascent Web by the company. He did so, and concluded that there was enormous potential, but after his report, the company decided to pass on it.
Clearly, he was right about the potential. If he'd been better at his job/more persuasive, D.E. Shaw & Co. would have invested in the Web, and he would not have had reason to leave and start Amazon.
Failing upwards
Nice paragraph and NASCAR is trash
I mean the super rich generally did a lot of things on their way there. The wake up call is usually around the things they do and people they exploit, not equating the difference to dumb luck.
Millionaires often worked for their money. Billionaires often worked for their first millions too. Problem is, difference between a billion and a million is about a billion.
On the other side of the argument, the amount of people that work harder and smarter than any given billionaire and have nothing is simply staggering. If it wasn’t down to luck, they’d all be billionaires.
So yeah, it is dumb luck. Randomness is not uniform, and someone ends up being close to the time and place of a local spike.
I would say that willingness to exploit other, be selfish and have low ethic also play a big role.
Except life is much more complicated than that.
Working hard and being smart doesn't equal to having lots of money.
Luck also doesn't equal having lots of money. How many "lucky" people have won the jack pot? And lost it all in a manner of months/years?
Not saying luck doesn't play a part maybe even a huge part but it just seems silly to attribute someone's success to luck.
Yes just saying it's only luck is just wrong.
Even the rich (not the super billionaire rich), yes they had luck but there is definitely more. Like I work as a freelancer in software development. Lots of people I have worked with are smarter and more talented than I am, but I still make more money. Because they never took the risk of going freelance and keep working for a company that takes halve the money a client pays.
Some people just don't like to take risks
These super rich people usually took big risks, worked for almost free for a while until it started to pay off. Of course for every billionaire there a 1000s of people that took the same risk and completely failed.
I'd say luck will sometimes make you rich, and being good at what you do will sometimes make you rich. Being good at what you do and also lucky has more of a chance of making you rich
It's *usually not entirely luck, you generally have to sort of know what you're doing
Is that Nigel Mansel?
I thought it was Keke Rosberg. The mustache checks.
