[buran77]

> Their [n.b Apple's] victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops

So nearly all of the (relatively) very few people that are funded by YC have Apple and that's proof of Apple's complete victory over a dead MS. In a year when MS was still on an upward trend, growing by 20% market cap to become double that of Apple.

Reading rich people's blogs reminds me every time that there's a reason wealth is also called "fortune". Because it's more about luck than anything else. And by luck I mean a family golden nugget, or lucky first investment, or both. A superpower that allows one to fail many times and still be able to try again until they hit the next fortune. Most people in the world can't even afford to try. Most of the rest can't afford to fail.

[hliyan]

Whenever I read these types of writing, it reminds me that just because a narrative is elegant, doesn't mean its true, especially when you're operating at very high levels of abstraction. Same problem I have with many pop psychology writings.

[dijit]

Think of it in the inverse.

If you're a person who is at one end of a funnel (in this case; new tech companies) and you see a 100% adoption which is contrary to the mainstream: you would think you have good insight.

You might forget that you're looking at:

A) A cargo culture

B) a homogeneous cohort.

This is the same way that people knew ahead of time that Microsoft Office would kill off Lotus notes. Since all school's were transitioning (or had transitioned) to Microsofts products.

It's also why people knew AWS would be so popular ahead of time, because new tech companies were not renting compute anymore, they were passing their credit cards to Amazon - even causing some companies to bet their products on making tooling to make AWS easier.

If you're at one end of the funnel, you can see the future.

Was this the future? or was it a false positive based on a cohort? - I definitely think the market dominance of Windows on the Desktop has been thoroughly challenged since 2008, and it's rare I see people elect to use Windows for <10yo companies unless the founders are only used to Microsoft products.

and I work in AAA games, which is insanely Microsoft dominated.

[jvanderbot]

So you're saying that new AAA game companies use macs or linux?

I can't resolve the cognitive dissonance of that making a ton of sense or none.

[dijit]

There are more non-windows PC's in AAA game companies than there were in 2008 by a wide margin. Though usually not directly for gamedev.

In 2008, the IT department couldn't even handle Macs at all, now it's a standard deployment among managers, designers, brand and even some programmers who only work with backend code. (though usually they'll have a gaming PC too for testing the game).

That was literally unthinkable back then.

[CrimsonCape]

Sure there are more non-windows PC's but it's still miniscule[1]. To claim Microsoft is anything other than dominant is fallacious. And I understand the desire to talk positively about the good things (linux adoption) and ignore the bad things (Microsoft dominance).

[1] "https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/04/linux-share-on-steam-b...

[dijit]

The amount of steam users is not at all what I’m talking about, I’m saying as a game developer (a windows *dominated* field) there are more people running around with Macs for general purpose computing than 2008.

That’s not wishful thinking, thats reality. Computers do more than play games.

[josefrichter]

This also reminds me of "garage startups". In fact, probably only a fraction of people around the world own a garage. If your family has a garage, it means you are probably among the top ~1% richest people on Earth.

[AlchemistCamp]

That’s silly. When I was growing up, we always had a garage and my family was ~25% under the median income. Hundreds of millions of Americans have a garage at home and it’s not the richest 2/3 of the country. It’s basically the people outside the largest cities.

There are probably about an equal number of people living in a home with a garage in China too, though it’s wealthier suburban areas as opposed to lower and middle class people.

They’re common in Japan, too, outside of the densest few cities. And of course there are plenty of other countries where garages are common, like Canada and Australia.

[why_only_15]

Probably more like richest 10%, which applies to most people in the US

[pwillia7]

> there's a reason wealth is also called "fortune". Because it's more about luck than anything else.

Very quotable

[behnamoh]

> Reading rich people's blogs reminds me every time that there's a reason wealth is also called "fortune". Because it's more about luck than anything else.

At some point they lose touch with reality. I've found their "advice" often doesn't work for young people who wanna become successful like them. Another example is Jensen:

"Nvidia doesn't have a long-term strategy, we just think about what to do next.

I don't wear a watch, because NOW is important"

and a lot of crap like that.

[matwood]

> At some point they lose touch with reality.

See every rich person telling young people to follow their passion.

[behnamoh]

Yes, it's so frustrating to hear them talk. Everyone knows a great deal of their success was luck (as discussed in the book Outlier), but they still find it amusing to lecture the "lesser folks" about ways to get rich.

[dist-epoch]

> I don't wear a watch, because NOW is important

That doesn't imply that Jensen thinks he's successful because he doesn't wear a watch. He's not that delusional.

[behnamoh]

oh he knows... you're telling me the CEO and co-founder of the most valuable company in history doesn't think he's successful?

[ianburrell]

NVIDIA was the most valuable stock for short period, before Apple took the record. It is now less valuable than Apple and Microsoft.

[tonyedgecombe]

>He's not that delusional.

I have no idea whether he is or not. However I suspect it is very hard to remain grounded when you have so much wealth. Every interaction with the outside world is going to be clouded by it. People will be subservient in a way that us peons don't experience when we dine in McDonalds or shop in Walmart.

[dist-epoch]

Almost everybody I know drives a Lamborghini. Toyota is so dead...

[carlosjobim]

It's not about being rich or not. People who can choose what kind of computer they have will choose Apple over PC. People who cannot choose will use work computers in their office with Windows installed, that corporate chose for them.

People who do not want a computer at all will have neither PC or Mac. The majority of people do not want to have a computer – they see enough of them at work, and they are happy with their smart phones.

[globalnode]

I think Apple is a very American thing. Outside the US, which you may not care about, only the most aspirationally Americanised people I've known have gone for apple products. Im not sure what the reasons are.

[carlosjobim]

Europeans generally don't purchase the things they want, they purchase the things they are supposed to be wanting, after having long deliberations together with relatives and friends. So then they'll only look at specs and price and not how useful a product is or how pleasant it is to use.

Europeans are in general very weird about money. They are as greedy as anybody, but what do they do then with that money? They think turning on the air conditioner will ruin them financially and they count how many cents each person owes each other.

[rewgs]

> They think turning on the air conditioner will ruin them financially

Literally laughed out loud at this, it’s so accurate.

[theragra]

This is pretty dumb generalization. In baltics, where I live, nobody counts cents or limits appliance use, despite low overall income.

[vishnugupta]

In 2007, when the article was written, I distinctly remember being at Amazon and Windows laptops were the default option. So was the entire office suite, their share point thing, not to speak about Outlook. In fact one had to beg to IT guys to allow us to use Linux laptops. MacBooks were still a few years away if I remember correctly.

It's amazing that PG looked around in his bubble, saw MacBooks and decided to write that Microsoft is dead.

[theragra]

100%

[subsection1h]

> People who can choose what kind of computer they have will choose Apple over PC.

FYI, this guy is a troll.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41153109

[carlosjobim]

You are just doing yourself a disfavor by dismissing anybody who doesn't think exactly like you as non-human (a troll, a bot, a Russian, a heretic!). On that route, you'll end up living your life much less than to the fullest. I think your example speaks for this.

Yes, I think that a graphical user interface would be excellent for a server. And I'm probably not the only one who would like that idea: Apple invested a bunch of money trying to do just that with their Mac OS X Server.

[caspper69]

> People who can choose what kind of computer they have will choose Apple over PC.

I have worked for an awful lot of people over the years, and given they could afford my services, I would guess they fall into the "people who can choose what kind of computer they will choose" category. Some could choose what kind of Ferrari they wanted, lol.

Your intuition is anecdotal. Plenty of people either don't care, or gasp prefer Windows. They are not stupid (I'm one of them, which I'd be happy to discuss with anyone, up to and including Mr. Torvalds).

An operating system is a tool to allow you to use your computer hardware and to run software. What fits your needs may not fit everyone's. There's nothing wrong with that.

[carlosjobim]

> Your intuition is anecdotal. Plenty of people either don't care, or gasp prefer Windows. They are not stupid (I'm one of them, which I'd be happy to discuss with anyone, up to and including Mr. Torvalds).

You're one of who?

[caspper69]

> Plenty of people either don't care, or gasp prefer Windows.

[whobre]

| People who can choose what kind of computer they have will choose Apple over PC.

No, we will not.

[Ekaros]

You would have to pay me considerable sum of money to pick anything Apple over other options.

[JohnHaugeland]

I’ve been hearing people say this since this incorrect essay was written almost 20 years ago

Microsoft had 74% of the desktop then and has 72% today

Microsoft had 0% of hosting then and has the world’s second largest share, 23%, today

Microsoft had, in 2007, 18% presence share in console gaming. Today they have 65%

They were one of the four tech orgs present at the presidential inauguration

They have grown enormously in the time this essay claims they were dying

[hajile]

Xbox One sold 57.9M and Series family has sold 28.3M by mid 2024.

PS4 sold 117M and PS5 sold 61.7M by mid 2024.

Nintendo claims 150.9M Switch consoles sold as of the end of 2024.

That puts Microsoft at around 20.7%, Sony at 43%, and Nintendo at about 36.3%.

Even if you exclude Nintendo with a "no-true-gamer" fallacy, Microsoft still has just 32.5% of the market.

Windows was over 90% in 2007 and is just 72% today. If you include the super-important mobile market, Windows actual marketshare is something like 10-15% and even less if you include servers (where even most Azure servers run Linux).

[JohnHaugeland]

I said presence share, not market share

Three total customers exist worldwide. All three have red square, two have yellow square, and one has blue square

Blue square sold one in six items, so it has one sixth market share. Blue square is one in three households, so it has one third presence share

[pjmlp]

Yes, if we are counting only game consoles, now if we count game studios owned by each company, and they earnings across all platforms, it is a complete different picture.

Microsoft owns PC, and even Valve has forced to emulate Windows/DirectX to have any games on SteamDeck.

The amount of office worker typing Excel sheets on mobile phones is rather tiny.

[hajile]

Even if you look at just computer games, Windows has a smaller share than any time since the 1980s.

If you include the massive mobile gaming market, Windows gaming is an even tinier percentage of the overall market (maybe even <10%).

[pjmlp]

Have you ever played Windows games on the 1980's?

That would be a first.

What matters is where money is, and how much of those games trace back to Microsoft owned studios.

Good example with mobile games though, as it is a good example of Valve's failure to capitalise on 80% of mobile games being run with OpenGL/Vulkan, on a Linux like platform, and yet they have to translate Win32/DirectX, as means to get games on SteamDeck.

[JohnHaugeland]

The PC’s share of gaming, according to EA, by dollars spent, is 23%, the second largest slice behind iOS, larger than any of the consoles

Guesswork is rarely helpful

[PetitPrince]

> Microsoft had, in 2007, 18% presence share in console gaming. Today they have 65%

Source for this ? Also what do you mean by "presence" ? I had the impression that Sony was in a way better position than Microsoft, and they were both dwarfed by Nintendo by a substantial margin.

(not that this invalidate your overall point).

[pjmlp]

PlayStation 3 went down quite badly among game developers given how hard Cell was to program for, and users with the whole OtherOS fallout, this brought XBox 360 into the winning round.

Microsoft lost the plot afterwards with XBox ONE against the Playstation 4, and even with the Series S|X, they never recovered on the hardware side.

However this is kind of relative now, even if they don't public admit yet, the hardware is gone, they are going SEGA, and by being one of the largest game publishers, it hardly matters if the XBox console isn't going that well.

In one year they already recovered all the money lost in the ABK deal and litigations.

[jasode]

>I’ve been hearing people say this since this incorrect essay was written almost 20 years ago Microsoft had [...list of significant statistics...]

Whenever someone writes a provocative article about something being "dead", they are almost always talking about influence and mindshare -- rather than business statistics.

Yes, Microsoft is still a huge behemoth being a $3+ trillion cap company with a overwhelming marketshare of Windows & Office installations but the apex of their "industry influence" was the 1990s during the "Wintel" days before the internet came along. That 1980s/1990s was the time period when Bill Gates was CEO and "everybody was scared of Microsoft". Since, then they ... lost the browser wars (both old IE and new IE with Trident engine failed), lost the mobile shift (Windows phones failed), is a distant #2 in search engine market. Microsoft is somewhat back in the influence game with AI but that's because they partnered with OpenAI rather than build something internally. Arguably, it's Meta that gets more noise with LLAMA, and China's High-Flyer getting everybody's attention with DeepSeek-R1. That's the type of "alive vs dead" PG is writing about.

The "dead" being a writer's rhetorical flourish rather than a business status is the same when applied to "IBM is dead". In pure business metrics, IBM is still a giant company with $65 billion in revenue and $7 in profits. The airlines, major banks, and credit-card companies still run millions of transactions through IBM Z mainframes. Companies are still buying and upgrading expensive new Z mainframes. But the rhetorical "dead" means IBM's apex of influence was 1960s & 1970s. The later IBM trying to relevant with the newer tech like Watson and blockchain service doesn't matter to people.

Maybe writers should stop using "dead" as rhetorical technique because it just confuses readers. E.g. saying something like "DirecTV is dead" makes people scratch their head when they just watched a game on the satellite service last night. How would that be possible if it was truly dead?!?

[donny2018]

You are missing a lot of stuff Microsoft is doing. Azure, .NET, server tools, databases, VS Code, TypeScript, GitHub, (yes, OpenAI), gaming, XBox, desktop, business tools, Surface, Microsoft 365, Teams and lots more. I'd say much of the things they are doing is quite "fresh" and it's more relevant as it has ever been.

There is a reason it's market cap is bigger than Google's and Amazon's, and its downfall has been long overturned.

>with a overwhelming marketshare of Windows & Office installations

It's interesting that you mention it, as none of these are very important on their own to today's Microsoft if you check their latest quarterly reports.

[jasode]

>You are missing a lot of stuff Microsoft is doing. Azure, .NET, server tools, databases, VS Code, TypeScript, GitHub, [...] and it's more relevant as it has ever been.

I didn't list them because they're not "relevant" (scare quotes) to PG's rhetorical angle of "dead". Yes, of course those Microsoft components are still relevant and still being updated and modernized. That said, even though I personally use VSCode, Visual Studio, Github every day, and have upgraded too many MS SQL Server databases... my point is those examples of Microsoft's current usage is not what PG is talking about. I'm not saying readers have to agree with PG. They just have to understand that he's using "dead" as a provocative shorthand about "influence" rather than business stats.

Same confusion as IBM coming out with new Z mainframe models in 2025 and IBM Red Hat just released a new RHEL 9.5 a few months ago and yet people will say "IBM is dead". How can IBM be dead if Red Hat Linux is still relevant?!? That's the problem with different readers' interpretation of the word "dead".

EDIT reply to: >Then what is he talking about when he says "dead"? [...] I mean for vast majority GitHub is a synonym for Git and VSCode is nearly a de-facto IDE for frontend development,

Github (2008 acquired by MS in 2018) and VSCode (2015) didn't exist in 2007 when PG wrote his "Microsoft is Dead" essay. It's possible those are "influential" enough to change his opinion. Maybe not. The examples of millions of people using MS Excel and Word every day back in 2007 with no meaningful competition from Google Docs or LibreOffice didn't stop him form writing "Microsoft is Dead". Therefore, we must conclude he's using "dead" in a very particular way.

[vishnugupta]

> VSCode, Visual Studio, Github every day, and have upgraded too many MS SQL Server databases... my point is those examples of Microsoft's current usage is not what PG is talking about....

Then what is he talking about when he says "dead"?

Also comparing those MS softwares with Z-mainframe & RHEL feels a bit off. If you take a 90th percentile of s/w developer starting career today they are more likely to have heard or used those MS tools than IBM's. I mean for vast majority GitHub is a synonym for Git and VSCode is nearly a de-facto IDE for frontend development, TypeScript I don't need to say much.

[JohnHaugeland]

I understood the writer's flourish.

If you want to understand my reaction, take two steps:

1. Note which companies do in fact have mindshare

2. Check which of those are owned by Microsoft

[rcxdude]

It is a pretty unhelpful way to say "Is not longer as incredibly dominant as it was". It's a stretch to apply it to "Is declining into irrelevence", even.

[nunez]

Watson has been around a long, long time, and they are still leaders in quantum computing IIRC.

[dijit]

> Microsoft had 74% of the desktop then and has 72% today

Microsoft had 90%+ of desktop penetration in 2008; in fact, it made news that it had slipped to below that at the end of 2008.[0][1]

Now it's around 70%, but seems to be improving?[2]

[0]: https://www.osnews.com/story/20605/windows-market-share-slip...

[1]: https://www.computerworld.com/article/1367310/windows-market...

[2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-sha...

[Clubber]

>Microsoft had 74% of the desktop then and has 72% today

That's only counting the latest version, if you include all Windows versions, it was in the high 90%. Today it's in the mid 90%.

https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk...

[scarface_74]

In 2005, it was actually closer to 4x - 60.79 vs 271B

It was around 2011 that Apple had a higher market cap.

He did predict the iPhone. That basically cemented Microsoft’s fate. Sure MS is still dominant in the “enterprise”. But no one is investing money to make great Windows apps.

[fogpudding]

The first time this essay made the rounds, a bunch of people misunderstood his point the same way you're doing: https://www.paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html

He was talking about cultural dominance among people developing new tech, not revenue.

There was a time when being a programmer essentially meant writing C++ on Windows. I still remember getting a Mac as late as ~2013 and having my normie (non-engineer) friends chastise me for it -- "how are you going to get any serious coding done?" -- because that was their genuine impression of Windows vs Macs. Meanwhile, imagine you're the founder of YC in 2007 in a city where all the new tech startups are happening. Everyone's using Macs. Surely it's at least a valid argument or hypothesis that this is a leading indicator of where the forefront of tech is going.

And now if you go to any modern fast-growing tech company, you look around, everyone uses Macs. Even lots of Microsoft employees use Macs. It seems the hypothesis wasn't completely wrong. Incidentally, it's only with hindsight that we're able to refute this somewhat: Microsoft made a nice comeback in the tech world after Nadella became CEO. But that was a big surprise when it happened.

Was it really necessary to turn this into a talking point about rich people and their sins?

[buran77]

> a bunch of people misunderstood his point the same way you're doing

Nobody implied he meant "dead dead" so that's a straw man, just that he completely missed the mark with his observation. Everything else is a backsplanation. PG even acknowledges he may look like a fool in retrospective.

> He was talking about cultural dominance among people developing new tech [...] Everyone's using Macs

So... a cultural thing you say, not connected to performance? Correlation not causation. The investor expects to see a Mac because that's part of the impression and everyone conformed. People showed up with a Mac to ask for money much like people show up in a suit to ask for a job. The interviewer expects the suit. It has no impact on the job performance or quality. It's just the "cultural" expectation. Wall Street people aren't more profitable due to the suits, and casual attire isn't dead.

> Was it really necessary to turn this into a talking point about rich people and their sins?

Was it really necessary to come to his defense? Was PG's opinion of MS really necessary? Would you have let it slide if I was praising instead?

[fogpudding]

They implied that he meant Microsoft's financials were in trouble, when he was more saying that Microsoft had become the new IBM.

I don't think Macs are popular in tech merely due to frivolous or circular fashion. Basically no one used Windows to do 2009-2016 era web dev. Not because founders were pushing employees to use Macs so investors would see when they came to visit; Microsoft genuinely lost a lot of reputation among programmers prior to the WSL stuff due to how bad their stuff was. Am I the only one who remembers this? People complaining and giving each other a look if they had to use "Winblows" and so on? (I still see this today.)

> Was it really necessary to come to his defense? ...

I mean, no, but why does every PG essay posted on here spawn a bunch of comments about basically how rich and pretentious he is? Why does this matter? If he's wrong, why not just say why?

[buran77]

> genuinely lost a lot of reputation

Billionaires also genuinely lost a lot of reputation. Present discussion and times stands proof. "Billionaires are dead", to mirror PG's sentiment. Surely you agree that having an opinion on rich people's predictive powers is at least as relevant and justified as having an opinion on MS's future.

PG called MS dead by observing a cultural/fashion trend among a sliver of the IT crowd and predicted a larger shift that never happened to any meaningful degree. He missed that what he was looking at wasn't truly of interest to MS. The 90% of regular users were and they had way more inertia than what PG though the few people in his line of sight could oppose.

> how rich and pretentious he is

Rich yes. "Pretentious" is your assessment. I made no moral judgement on the man. Just counterbalancing the common narrative seen even here that rich people have a superior intellects, they see things others don't even in the dark uncertainty of the future. In reality it's mostly bias, successes are praised, failures downplayed. It tricks people into believing rich people are oracles, or that not rich means not intelligent. You don't object to the praising and you'll fight to support that bias? That looks disingenuous.

> If he's wrong, why not just say why?

I did, repeatedly. You just cared more about responding than about understanding. No amount of "saying why" will change your mind because there's always some other place to shift the goal posts. "It's cultural but actually technical. It's dead but just dead for some coders. It's just a few coders but SV is all that matters. Time proved it wrong but it surprised everyone." You'll also put words in my mouth that I absolutely never suggested hoping it brings my argument low enough that you think you have a chance of fighting it. Not in a million throwaway accounts ;).

[ninetyninenine]

That quote is so out of touch.

It was never that complete. Gamers used pcs. Paul grahams surprise missed an entire segment of the market.

Additionally Mac usage statistically never exceeded windows. Paul lived a bit in a rich persons world and he’s around a lot web developers who like osx because it’s unixy without the issues of old Linux.

[wink]

And don't forget location. In 2007 not even the majority of developers in Europe had adopted the 'default developer mac', that only came a couple years later than in the US (afaik) and it never even reached that adoption rate (that is now in general, not only developers). If I look at my non-tech friends in Germany there is still just a tiny percentage using macs, and even iPhones are way outnumbered by Android.

[theragra]

I think I even saw Mac for the first time around 2004. Eastern europe.

[RIMR]

It is an common theme with PG to write confidently about technology while also demonstrating that he has absolutely no understanding of what he's talking about.

I've been commenting about this here for YEARS with constant pushback and excuses for him from the community. "He's a billionaire so he must be smart", "He personally wrote the entire HN codebase", "Nobody really needs a valid SSL cert on their website in 2023". Dang has even cited me for "personal attacks" for daring to point out PG's most visible shortcomings and knowledge gaps.

I guess the inflection point was PG turning to X to screech about "wokism" in support of oligarchs like Trump and Musk to snap this community out of it's pro-PG trance. Watching a billionaire cheer on the billionaire class as we plummet into technofeudalism is a hell of a wake up call.

Glad to see criticism of PG finally going mainstream here, especially digging back 18 years and concluding that he's always been like this. It's a shame he financially runs this place and these comments are short-lived due to platform manipulation.

[robertlagrant]

> Glad to see criticism of PG finally going mainstream here

I appreciate there are people out there who have chosen PG to emotionally glom onto, positively or negatively, and perhaps you're probably an extreme case of the latter, so I would have to challenge a little. "Criticising someone loads" isn't a good thing. Just neutrally challenging their ideas individually is all that's needed.

[foul]

>I guess the inflection point was PG turning to X to screech about "wokism" in support of oligarchs like Trump and Musk to snap this community out of it's pro-PG trance. Watching a billionaire cheer on the billionaire class as we plummet into technofeudalism is a hell of a wake up call.

In hindsight his (and Andreessen's techno-bullshit) have won a bet with Trump, those tweaker writings are very much aligning with the zeitgeist that's being imposed by Trump, Musk and their lackeys, they may even brag about having get there earlier than every other rich techbro.

[robertlagrant]

> Reading rich people's blogs reminds me every time that there's a reason wealth is also called "fortune". Because it's more about luck than anything else. And by luck I mean a family golden nugget, or lucky first investment, or both. A superpower that allows one to fail many times and still be able to try again until they hit the next fortune. Most people in the world can't even afford to try. Most of the rest can't afford to fail.

Is this true? Did Paul Graham have outside money to fall back on that was given to him to sustain him through all his failures?

[thesuitonym]

From Wikipedia: Graham received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in philosophy from Cornell University in 1986. He then received a Master of Science in 1988, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990, both in computer science from Harvard University. Graham has also studied fine arts and painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.

Note that most people can't even afford to go to one university, let alone four. That definitely seems like someone who had a safety net that allowed him to focus on acquiring wealth, instead of acquiring shelter or food.

[foldr]

PG is from a middle class family AFAIK and probably benefited from some parental support. However, you may be missing the fact that graduate study in the US is typically funded. He would most likely have received a stipend or other funding covering living expenses while doing his PhD.

[robertlagrant]

> Note that most people can't even afford to go to one university, let alone four. That definitely seems like someone who had a safety net that allowed him to focus on acquiring wealth, instead of acquiring shelter or food.

In 1986 a smart person who was willing to live cheaply could definitely do this. Doing a PhD is not evidence of a "family golden nugget", in my view. I don't know when he did his art studies, but still. Giant numbers of middle class people do not do what Paul Graham did, even though they had enough "safety net" to do that studying.

[DanielHB]

Jeez, I suppose we should only allow people in who grew up living under a bridge like you.

[DonnyV]

Yup, nepo kid

"...father worked for Westinghouse, modelling nuclear reactors, then was named the Director of Nuclear Safety for Atomic Energy of Canada"

https://hsm.stackexchange.com/a/16002

[robertlagrant]

I don't understand. Are you saying Paul Graham got a job at Westinghouse due to nepotism?

[DonnyV]

"Nepotism is the act of granting an advantage, privilege, or position to relatives in an occupation or field."

[graemep]

I do not know about Paul Graham in particular, but it is true of many rich people.

[robertlagrant]

I know it's an oft-recited thing in the last decade or so, but I don't really understand it. It's true that in markets with lots of value to provide someone will win, and probably make lots of money, but to do so they would have to out-compete all the other people. That is extremely difficult, and calling it luck just seems a bit silly. People who got rich through building businesses aren't like lottery winners or heirs of fortunes. Why pretend they are, and what's behind that mindset?

[graemep]

Because it is demonstrably true for many people that luck or family influence or money played a factor.

They may have had to compete with other people in the same advantages in the same business - which may not be very many.

There is an overlap between people who build businesses and heirs of fortunes. Far more people increase an existing fortune than become rich from scratch.