[mrspeaker]

Comments on these kind of articles on Hacker News are always more defensive than I'd imagine. I think we have a weird mix of people where 50% are "hackers of computers" who'd do this shit for free, and will be doing it until they die and 50% are "hackers of society" who are here because they see an opportunity to make it to "big time" without having to have the right parents/schools etc.

It's strange how most of the time the two groups get along so well!

[te_chris]

You're giving the audience here too much credit that they're actually hackers. On most articles like this it just feels like a bunch of doe-eyed, aspirational men who really want to be rich one day, so don't want to spoil the fun for their future selves.

Tangentially, this is what struck me about visiting America. We went to Hearst castle and the reverence which the guides and the people on the tour paid to the ghost and myth of Hearst was unnerving. Explains a lot about how wall st gets away with stuff though.

[ItendToDisagree]

I get that feeling as well. There seem to be a lot of people responding to these types of articles who have 'stars in their eyes' and think that they'll be able to join the 'old boys club' if they just work hard enough, or get lucky enough (though some also seem to deny that luck has anything to do with success which baffles me).

The reverence for the wealthy in America really is a whole other weird thing. America doesn't have the history (in time span) to really have many historical heros other than those who were wealthy enough to 'do things' so we have to make due with what we've got.

That is not to say that a great deal of any given place's heros of the past were not also wealthy in their time though.

[blumkvist]

Luck?

Luck is invented to be an excuse for the feeble minded.

There is no luck involved in getting rich. If you want to get rich you have to 1) work hard 2) be smart 3) be unscrupulous.

The 3rd dependency is often misunderstood and the results of it are attributed to "luck".

[tragic]

Yes, Paris Hilton had to put in a lot of hard, astute and unscrupulous work to get those parents of hers.

In a past life, presumably.

[blumkvist]

Your comment just proves my point - people refuse to face the reality and would rather come up with excuses, exceptions and other self-deceptions, than admit they don't have what it takes.

And for the record, Paris Hilton did not get rich. She was born rich.

[tragic]

Oh, I'm happy to admit I don't have what it takes, according to your little calculus. I'm lazy. I'm smart, but not that smart. And I find it emotionally difficult to climb over other people's bodies to get to the cash money. But that's fine - a life of relative material comfort and intellectual stimulation is quite enough for me.

The point is, there are many people who do 'have what it takes' in those terms who will never, ever be rich. Are you seriously arguing that somebody with a comfortable Orange County upbringing has the same barriers to entry for riches, wealth and glory than somebody who assiduously grafts out a bare existence in some Rio slum?

> And for the record, Paris Hilton did not get rich. She was born rich.

Alas, now you have conceded the principle, and we can negotiate over the price. Paris Hilton was 'born rich'; what about, say, the child of a family wealthy enough to afford a private education? Who got preferential treatment in an Ivy League admissions process because they were born to an alumnus? Whose uncle got them an internship at some bank?

[druiid]

So she was born rich. You might even say... she was born lucky.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>Comments on these kind of articles on Hacker News are always more defensive than I'd imagine.

We're all just temporarily embarrassed billionaires.

[gph]

Not me, I'm a temporarily embarrassed trillionaire. I wouldn't be caught dead with these plebillionaires.

[ForHackernews]

http://www.amazon.com/Trillionaire-Next-Door-Investors-Tradi...

[NhanH]

Because we could have 80% of one group, and 60% of another group as well - the two groups are not mutually exclusive.