[th0raway]

It comes down to two things. One is the well documented issue of how, when you are that rich, you are treated differently, and how that will ultimately modify your behavior. The other is the prerequisites to get to the job. Chances are you aren't fully self-made, receiving no investment. From convincing investors, to having immense faith in a project that cannot be obviously good, as otherwise you'd be building what already exists, to the personality to handle the road upward.

This second effect happens in all kinds of places where you have to jumps througha lot of hoops to just get to get there. Every hoop discards candidates, and promotes different things. Sometimes in ways that make sure that nobody capable of attaining the job is fit to actually do it well. You can see the issue all over the place, once you track people's careers. Sometimes things that should be disqualifying for a role are actually requirements in practice.

[kevincox]

> To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

> - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[jakeydus]

The people who would, shouldn't. The people who should, won't.

[flir]

There's an old SF short where one of the people who won't gets forced to. Battery of psychological tests followed by "you're one of the rulers now, and you're going to hate every minute of it, but we enslave you so the rest of us have a peaceful, prosperous planet."

Wish I could remember the name/author.

[SanjayMehta]

Isaac Asimov had a story where one voter was selected by Multivac to pick the leader of the world.

[flir]

Thanks. Franchise. Not that one...

[SimianSci]

- Own a monopoly - Inherit your fortune - Run a criminal enterprise

Using just these three filters alone, you encompass more than 99% of all billionaires in existence. The amount of billionaires who do not fit into these categories can barely occupy a family sized vehicle.

The criteria here suggesting that there is a specific sociopathic personality requirement to being a billionaire as each category can be argued as harmful to societies.

[nostrademons]

I've been thinking that you can divide businesses on two axes,

                            Scalable - Many customers
                                     |
    Short-term/       Ponzi Scheme   |    Monopoly         Long-term/
    Transactional  --------------------------------------   Relational
                       Contracting / |   Consulting /
                       Retail etc    |   Therapy etc
                                     |
                        Non-scalable - Few customers

And mathematically, only businesses at the top of the graph are capable of generating a billion dollars. Hence, if you are looking to be a billionaire, the path lies either through a Ponzi scheme or through a monopoly. Both of them, in their most pure form, are illegal, and the challenge in the business model is to execute on them while staying just barely on the right side of the law.

[njwi332]

Well, your point somewhat stands but there are many examples of retail, contracting and consulting companies in excess of a billion dollars.

[andai]

Which one is Minecraft?