[e40]

> My point was just that I think it's statistically extremely unlikely for a consistently honest person to become obscenely wealthy because the cost/benefit proposition gets worse and worse the richer you are.

From experience this completely lines up with what I have seen, in my almost 40 year career. I've watched serial entrepreneurs to things I would never dream of. It was then I knew, I'd never be rich.

The only quibble I have with your idea: it's not just billionaires. Of course, there are more millionaires who are still honest, but the percentage compared to the non-millionaire working population is much lower.

When you own and run a business, you are constantly confronted with decisions that have a good and bad path. The bad path, for me, is when I answer "yes" to the question "will this make it harder for me to sleep well at night?" Those decisions came up so often early in my career. I pride myself on how well I sleep at night, but I'm not rich.