[imgabe]

> If Bill Gates had been born and raised in Ruanda, you wouldn't know his name today. Same IQ, same hustler. But no parents with connections, no upbringing devoid of war and violence.

Flip that around. There are thousands, if not millions of other kids who grew up with wealthy, connected parents. Why aren't they all billionaires if that's all it takes?

[overthemoon]

They're still wealthy, though, that's the main point. It's not that wealthy parents = billions of dollars, it's that the path to billionaire status overwhelmingly starts with abnormally good starting conditions.

[imgabe]

Billionaire is a bad metric. These are outliers of outliers. Obviously everyone can't be a billionaire. That's like asking why everyone isn't an Olympic gold medalist. Of course the path to a billionaire is going to start with abnormal conditions. It's also going to be completely abnormal along the way, too. It's an abnormal outcome. Why would you expect anything different?

[viklove]

Because if you're not born rich your chances of dying rich are astronomically low. We pretend social mobility exists when in reality it does not, or at least it's extremely rare (even in the US, now more than ever).

[edanm]

I think the problem is the flipping from "Billionaire" to "rich". To get to the most insanely abnormal outcome imaginable, you need crazy good conditions and lots of luck. To get to the level of "rich", by most people's standards, you don't need anywhere near the same level (though of course, luck still plays a role depending on how you define luck - I mean in some sense, you're crazy lucky to even be alive given the odds against the particular sperm/egg matching that made you up.)

[ForHackernews]

> Obviously everyone can't be a billionaire.

The question is should anyone be a billionaire? Many of us think the answer is 'no'.

[imgabe]

Should anyone run a sub-4 minute mile? Should anyone be 7 feet tall? Should anyone make the world's largest pizza? What other outliers are you going to put yourself in charge of regulating?

[overthemoon]

None of these (except the pizza?) are the result of policy, a billion dollars is. None of these polarize undemocratic power, a billion dollars does. None of them are innate in the sense that they cannot be separated from the person like extreme wealth. Height and athletic ability are neutral in a way that extreme wealth are not. Height and athletic ability are biological and meritorious in a way extreme wealth could never be. These aren't in the same category and cannot be reduced to a value neutral "outlier".

[imgabe]

You are missing the point. When you start talking about what "should" be, you imply that there is some authority in charge of deciding the rightness of what is or isn't. Who is that authority? Which bureaucrat in Washington do you want to sit at a desk and decide how much money you are allowed to have?

Right now Jeff Bezos "has" umpty-billion dollars because he owns so many shares of Amazon stock and the market values those shares at a certain amount. So, how do you propose to make him not a billionaire? Are you going to confiscate his shares and hand them over to the government? Would the government be better at running Amazon than Jeff Bezos is? Are you going to pass a law that forbids anyone from buying a share of Amazon for a value any more than what would make Bezos a billionaire? What exactly is the plan here?

People who spout off nonsense like there shouldn't be billionaires, haven't ever though through what that means or what it would imply to make their half-baked notions into a reality.

[n4r9]

No one suggested that being rich is all it takes, just that it increases the odds substantially.