[whitebread]

Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires? Self-made is a myth, and an NBA owner just released a book titled "Shut Up and Listen." Money talks, and it seems pretty clear that all of the moves previously made were actually for profits, not social causes.

[dang]

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21195478 and marked it off-topic.

[duxup]

>Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires?

I'm not sure that user is pushing a particular agenda you describe. Nor does the name of a book prove much of anything.

[sorenn111]

How is self-made a myth? Not saying all billionaires should be envied, praised, etc. I'm sure many are huge manipulative asshole. But many also came from very modest to virtually no means, how is that a myth?

[sidlls]

"Many" is a fuzzy term. The vast majority of wealthy people started with substantial means. The only self-made billionaire in tech that comes to mind is the creator of WhatsApp, and even he had a great network and connections available to only a miniscule fraction of individuals by the time that took off. I'm sure there are a few more, but it's simply misleading to say "many" when you mean "some, an almost unmeasurably small percentage, in fact."

[uoaei]

"Self-made" is almost always a misnomer because there's a point very early in the process of accruing wealth where you use it to bootstrap its own operations, i.e., you start paying other people for their output to collect a net profit. At that point, "self-made" no longer applies because now other people are involved. At what point that transition happens determines how "self-made" they are, but no one is ever 100% that, and if we go by "percentage of current wealth needed to bootstrap" it's certainly well below 1%.

The global nature of today's economy, the complexity of navigating commerce and industry, and the sheer magnitude of output required to be profitable, makes it hard to do anything all by yourself. If we consider each person their own island with cash in- and outflow, then everyone is self-made. If we consider the global network of money changing hands, no one is self-made.

[tooop]

Self made means that you didn't inherit your money, win it in lottery or somebody just gave it you. Self-made doesn't stop applying when other people are involved, that is just absurd.

[johnchristopher]

English isn't my first language but self-made seems to me to be about the self as in opposition to others.

And I have always understood the word to be used in that sense.

See the Collins definition (emphasis mine):

Self-made is used to describe people who have become successful and rich through their own efforts, especially if they started life without money, education, or high social status.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/self-ma...

[tooop]

Giving orders to others are your actions/efforts/decisions so it entirely suits the definition.

[johnchristopher]

"I ask my mom and dad to connect me to their old money friends to get some low rate loans to bootstrap my business. I am self made because I asked my mom and dad for the connection. And I also ask them to co-sign the lease for my office."

HN Argumentum_ad_dictionarium at its finest. It's getting tiring.

[uoaei]

You can't take credit for someone else's work.

If I was capable of issuing every possible order to every employee, am I more entitled to the profits derived from their output if they happen to do something I mentioned?

[uoaei]

This conflates "self-made" with "started with nothing". In some ways they align but they're not useful as synonyms.

The major difference between inheriting money and attracting investors is that you need to be more convincing for the latter to get the money on offer. The investor to whom you are otherwise a stranger might want to put some contract together to make sure they see a slice of the pie if you're successful (big if!), but if you fail they don't demand their money back.

But how can you call it "self-made" if you're using someone else's money? It doesn't matter which pocket it comes from, at some point very early in the process you are dependent on the pocketbooks of others.

[tooop]

You literally just described effort - doing everything possible to attract investors.

[uoaei]

Effort is effort -- I'm not saying billionaires did nothing to achieve their wealth. I'm saying that mythologizing them according to some sort of reverse-anachronistic fetish of rugged individualism/pioneering/entrepreneurship is fallacious. Effort to attract investors is a key to opening doors but don't pretend that the people who have the money you're asking for didn't do you a massive favor.

[isoskeles]

> you start paying other people for their output to collect a net profit

Didn't realize it was that easy. Why doesn't everyone just do this one little trick?

[uoaei]

That's literally what everyone does. It's called "investment".

[isoskeles]

Oh interesting, does literally everyone else also pay their investments a salary or hourly wage and benefits like health care? Do they manager the performance of their investments? Can their investments sue them for violating labor practices? Sounds different from what that person was talking about.

[uoaei]

Yes. To employ people is to invest in them.

This rhetoric is not uncommon in business.

You have spent/are spending money so that eventually it comes back as more money. What else is "investment"?

[paggle]

And the one who released "Shut up and Listen" is the one who walked back his GM's comments and licked China's boots.

[mruts]

Did you read it? From your language I really doubt it.