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by skj 1856 days ago
A self-made mining billionaire? Indeed that is fascinating. He must have been working really hard down in those mines to make that much without any help.
2 comments

You could play this game with virtually any billionaire[0]. Everyone who gets that wealthy does it by leveraging other people. That's the whole point of forming a company. Self made in this context obviously means did it from the ground up.

The fact is, he started some speculative mining ventures that found massive mineral deposits. That's self made.

[0]: Marc Rich might be an exception. His company was basically him and a telephone for a while, but he was still leveraging his relationships with other commodities firms, which are themselves massive employers.

Self-made? From wikipaedia:

"[During his senior year] Friedland served as the caretaker of an apple farm […] owned by his millionaire uncle".

Clearly absolutely nowhere near multi-generational wealth.