[dannypgh]

By what definition is Bill Gates "self made?" He had a million-dollar trust fund going into life, which let him take risks and exploit opportunities that others could not have.

http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/

I think you do justice no favors by disregarding the microsoft employees (and acquisitions) that did the overwhelming majority of work to earn that wealth, not Bill Gates. Sometimes in violation of law, and sometimes via questionably legal business practices that forced many people who don't use their products to pay for them. But I guess in capitalism, owner-takes-all and might-makes-right, huh?

[sauravc]

Going from a simple millionaire to creating a company like Microsoft takes a lot of hard work to pull off.

But if you want to run with your line of reasoning then no one in the US really qualifies as self-made, from the point of view of let's say a poor person in India. We're all rich to someone who makes less than a dollar a day.

[dannypgh]

Completely reasonable. I think wealth is almost always created by communities and not individuals, so I'm skeptical of the idea of anyone being purely "self made."

I am willing to concede there is a common definition of the term that is less strict. However I've never heard a definition of the term where a millionaire by birth is "self-made."

[adventured]

If all Bill Gates had ever accomplished is that he inherited a million dollar trust fund - if that's all his life had amounted to, living off of that fund, growing that fund - then your argument would have merit. As it is, your argument is about as far away from meritorious as one can be. Your argument attempts to rob Gates of his accomplishment due to the conditions of his birth, it's an extremely dark argument that if applied to the human race would mean that nobody ever deserves individual credit for anything.

[dannypgh]

How did I attempt to rob Gates of his accomplishment? I'm not ascribing any value judgment to not being self-made.

I think those who think he is self-made clearly have a different definition of the term. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-made_man

"The appellation 'self-made man' or 'self-made woman' describes a person who was born poor or otherwise disadvantaged, but who achieved great economic success thanks to their own hard work and ingenuity rather than to any inherited fortune, family connections or other privilege."

Bill Gates was born with inherited fortune, family connections, and privilege. He was not born poor. That's not his fault any more than it's a poor child's fault that their parents are poor. But it is a fact.

A million bucks of wealth, with a conservative safe withdrawal rate of 3%, entitles you to $30k a year. This puts you in the 30th percentile of household income. That's not luxurious, but for zero work at all that's a much better outcome than someone who was born with nothing not working at all. A million in the bank puts you in the 96.3rd percentile of wealth in the US.

Say what you want about Bill Gates and his accomplishments, that doesn't change the fact he was born into wealth and inherently disqualified from being able to claim to be "self-made."

[adventured]

How much of that trust fund was invested into Microsoft, and how much of it did he receive prior to becoming a self-made billionaire?

As though a person should be disqualified of their own accomplishments because of their circumstances at birth; as though a person has a choice where and when they're born. I can think of few notions more evil than that, whether applied to the rich or the poor. By your theory, a poor person is never self-made either, after all it was their impoverished circumstances that made them successful, not their own work ethic. It was the poverty that motivated them, drove them, and lifted them up; after all, the poor person had nothing to lose and everything to gain! It is thus there are supposedly no self-made persons anywhere (welcome to collectivism, where there is no individual achievement, only borg achievement).

Did that trust fund keep him comfy during those hard Albuquerque days, struggling to get Microsoft off the ground, pay the bills, pay the employees, while living out of a roach motel working 20 hour days and living on soda and pizza? My, what a glamorous lifestyle a trust fund delivers.

I guess Paul Allen isn't self-made either, because it was Bill's trust fund that was responsible for Microsoft. Whoops, you just robbed every self-made Microsoft employee of their credit.

Did that trust fund make him work harder? It should have made him work less hard.

Did that trust fund give him ambition? It should have made him slouch around, after all, what worries could he have? Why strain yourself so much if you're already rich from birth.

Did that trust fund make him spend his youth writing software, selling software, evangelizing software? Surely sitting on a beach drinking a nice beverage is more fun than that.

Bill Gates is self-made by the only definition that matters: he earned his wealth of his own ability, effort and self-motivation.

Does everyone with a million dollar trust fund automatically acquire an 12 figure net fortune? There are over nine million millionaires in the United States today. Lucky for them they all get to be automatic, non-self-made billionaires.

The truth is, Gates didn't need that trust fund - which he never used to begin with. It didn't create Microsoft, didn't seed Microsoft, didn't do any of the work, didn't make any of the decisions, didn't negotiate any of the deals, didn't hire any of the employees, and didn't pay any of the bills, and didn't do all of that successfully for three decades without destroying it all.

[mistermann]

Hacker News, 2013 - come for the interesting articles, stay for the insane self-righteousness of the commenters.

I'm curious if you're going to reply to the very well written comment by @adventured below.