[GDC7]

> There are plenty of concrete/building material companies that do make a fortune: Heidleberg 18.85bn EUR Cemex 13bn USD CRH 27.59bn EUR

That's the revenue, if you look at profits they made 1B in 2019 with 57,000 employees.

Also it was founded in 1874...

[godelski]

That sounds like a fortune to me.

[GDC7]

Not when you split that billion among the many millions of people who own shares in the company.

I also remind you that the year of incorporation was 1874

[godelski]

I think you don't realize how much a billion dollars is. That's an insane amount of money.

I'm not sure what the year of incorporation means here? That they have clearly been profitable for a long time and been making a lot of people a lot of money for that time? I'm sorry, everything you've been saying just keeps suggesting to me that this is profitable and good business.

[GDC7]

The goal of the individual is not to work, the goal of the individual is to retire early. Everything short of that is a failure.

This company has failed to give the opportunity to retire early to its owners ever since 1874.

The original founders didn't retire early for sure, and the 2nd generation and 3rd generation failed to do so as well.

And for sure this concrete company isn't giving a chance to retire early to those who own its stock today, because 1 billion split among the many millions of individual who own the stock makes the individual gains a non-life changing amount.

The only way you can retire early with this cement company is via betting on the stock using some insane 1000:1 leverage and trade its daily up&down movements.

Now take a second and just compare this cement company against the many thousands of millionaires that Microsoft minted over the years and that it continues to mint.

Some people have made millions from dividends and on top of that millions from the sheer stock appreciation, all that with an investment in the thousands or dozen of thousands at most.

[godelski]

> The goal of the individual is not to work, the goal of the individual is to retire early. Everything short of that is a failure.

You might want to tell Musk and Bezos that. Or any movie star. Really there's thousands of people you could tell this to that have amount of money that could live in luxury indefinitely. This is certainly true for any billionaire. It is also certainly true for anyone with over $50m.

[GDC7]

Sure, but the concrete company failed to even give the owners the optionality to retire and keep their current lifestyle.