<story><title>How the .0001% Made Its Money</title><url>http://priceonomics.com/how-the-0001-made-its-money/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adventured</author><text>Bill Gates shouldn&amp;#x27;t be listed as someone who inherited his wealth: he did not inherit it.&lt;p&gt;The $100 billion he&amp;#x27;ll give away was of his own creation, spurred from effort of his own mind, from a company born of his own fingers and imagination.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re having this conversation thanks to the Internet, probably via relatively inexpensive tools&amp;#x2F;gadgets. Which means we&amp;#x27;ve all inherited an extraordinary privilege - courtesy of the immense efforts of countless others and countless invested wealth - that I would argue is drastically beyond anything Gates had the benefit of despite his family. What have you done with it? (rhetorical)&lt;p&gt;The privilege we&amp;#x27;re all enjoying right now - all of this easily accessible, relatively cheap, amazing technology - is beyond anything being born to a successful Seattle lawyer is worth. Why aren&amp;#x27;t we all millionaires N times over? If you understand that point, then you understand why Gates deserves credit for his wealth.&lt;p&gt;His mother didn&amp;#x27;t make the deal with IBM (in fact Ballmer was arguably most instrumental in the nuanced legal structure that gave Microsoft its position), and his mother didn&amp;#x27;t execute and build software for 30 years against tremendous odds and competition either. Is your theory that Bill Gates should be penalized for being born into a family and situation that was not of his own choosing? Such that you pretend his wealth wasn&amp;#x27;t of his own creation and is null and void, because his father was a lawyer (remind me again what making $100k a year as a lawyer in 1970 has to do with your son generating a $100 billion fortune in 2000, seems to me there are a lot of extraordinary steps required to get from one to the other no matter how good your first step is, whether you&amp;#x27;re Steve Jobs or Bill Gates).&lt;p&gt;There are 9 million millionaires in the US currently, and this country has been rich for a long time now. Why aren&amp;#x27;t we drowning in Bill Gates clones? The answer is obvious.&lt;p&gt;Any idea how many successful lawyer sons didn&amp;#x27;t generate $100 billion in wealth the last 40 years? All of them but one. Gates is one in a million even by that narrow-down.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d counter argue that Buffett would have been successful regardless of his father being a Congressman (it&amp;#x27;s absurd to think that a one term trip to DC is what made Buffett what he is). Indeed, using Buffett as an example is the absolute worst thing you could do: the market doesn&amp;#x27;t care if your daddy was a Congressman, it was his massive results that spoke volumes, got people to invest with him over time, and made him rich. Some of his shareholders held for decades. It was his understanding of how to make money, and his ability to sell that vision, that scored his first investments. Even doctors don&amp;#x27;t like to lose $100k to some idiot kid, no matter who their father is (his father wasn&amp;#x27;t that important, and his grandfather&amp;#x27;s stores weren&amp;#x27;t that wildly successful).&lt;p&gt;Or did you think people were buying Berkshire at $100 because his daddy was a a borderline irrelevant Congressman for one term?</text></item><item><author>firstOrder</author><text>The first paragraph says:
&amp;gt; The popular view of America&amp;#x27;s upper class is that of an ossified aristocracy. But research from the National Bureau of Economic Research shakes up this view, at least among America&amp;#x27;s richest individuals.&lt;p&gt;Not much has shaken up this view.  Half of the list inherited $400 million or more upon turning 18.  Even the other half of the list are from among a small percentage of America&amp;#x27;s upper middle class.&lt;p&gt;#1 Bill Gates.  Father a wealthy lawyer.  His grandfather was a national bank president.  He went to an elite private grammar school, which had teletypes and computer timesharing back in the 1960s.  His mother was on the board of United Way with the CEO of IBM - a helpful thing for a son who became a billionaire by riding IBM&amp;#x27;s coattails.  Despite all of this, he is still on the bootstrapped, self-made side of the F400 list.  He is not one of the heirs.&lt;p&gt;Next is Warren Buffett.  His father was a congressman.  His grandfather owned a string of stores.  And so on.&lt;p&gt;The rest of the top ten are the Waltons, who inherited Wal-Mart on birth, the Koch brothers, who inherited an oil company on birth, plus Larry Ellison and Michael Bloomberg.  Ellison and Bloomberg are the only middle class people on the list.&lt;p&gt;I do think there are new trends happening at this level, but they don&amp;#x27;t point to what the blog post authors are pointing to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>recuter</author><text>Buffet made his initial nut by raising a sort of &amp;quot;Friends &amp;amp; Family&amp;quot; round for a mini-hedge-fund type thing. You can read about his wealthy Aunts and extended family in Snowball.&lt;p&gt;He was doing this on the side while working at his daddys Buffett-Falk &amp;amp; Co as an investment salesman. He did well and after stalking Graham was able to get a gig in NYC for a few years before returning to running &amp;quot;mini-hedge-fund&amp;quot; type partnerships in his hometown.&lt;p&gt;So being a son of a congressman surely helped in raising many many millions of dollars from the Nebraska elite. I would even argue its almost a necessary but insufficient condition for making his initial fortune - he got dealt a great hand but he also played it very very well.</text></comment>
<story><title>How the .0001% Made Its Money</title><url>http://priceonomics.com/how-the-0001-made-its-money/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adventured</author><text>Bill Gates shouldn&amp;#x27;t be listed as someone who inherited his wealth: he did not inherit it.&lt;p&gt;The $100 billion he&amp;#x27;ll give away was of his own creation, spurred from effort of his own mind, from a company born of his own fingers and imagination.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re having this conversation thanks to the Internet, probably via relatively inexpensive tools&amp;#x2F;gadgets. Which means we&amp;#x27;ve all inherited an extraordinary privilege - courtesy of the immense efforts of countless others and countless invested wealth - that I would argue is drastically beyond anything Gates had the benefit of despite his family. What have you done with it? (rhetorical)&lt;p&gt;The privilege we&amp;#x27;re all enjoying right now - all of this easily accessible, relatively cheap, amazing technology - is beyond anything being born to a successful Seattle lawyer is worth. Why aren&amp;#x27;t we all millionaires N times over? If you understand that point, then you understand why Gates deserves credit for his wealth.&lt;p&gt;His mother didn&amp;#x27;t make the deal with IBM (in fact Ballmer was arguably most instrumental in the nuanced legal structure that gave Microsoft its position), and his mother didn&amp;#x27;t execute and build software for 30 years against tremendous odds and competition either. Is your theory that Bill Gates should be penalized for being born into a family and situation that was not of his own choosing? Such that you pretend his wealth wasn&amp;#x27;t of his own creation and is null and void, because his father was a lawyer (remind me again what making $100k a year as a lawyer in 1970 has to do with your son generating a $100 billion fortune in 2000, seems to me there are a lot of extraordinary steps required to get from one to the other no matter how good your first step is, whether you&amp;#x27;re Steve Jobs or Bill Gates).&lt;p&gt;There are 9 million millionaires in the US currently, and this country has been rich for a long time now. Why aren&amp;#x27;t we drowning in Bill Gates clones? The answer is obvious.&lt;p&gt;Any idea how many successful lawyer sons didn&amp;#x27;t generate $100 billion in wealth the last 40 years? All of them but one. Gates is one in a million even by that narrow-down.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d counter argue that Buffett would have been successful regardless of his father being a Congressman (it&amp;#x27;s absurd to think that a one term trip to DC is what made Buffett what he is). Indeed, using Buffett as an example is the absolute worst thing you could do: the market doesn&amp;#x27;t care if your daddy was a Congressman, it was his massive results that spoke volumes, got people to invest with him over time, and made him rich. Some of his shareholders held for decades. It was his understanding of how to make money, and his ability to sell that vision, that scored his first investments. Even doctors don&amp;#x27;t like to lose $100k to some idiot kid, no matter who their father is (his father wasn&amp;#x27;t that important, and his grandfather&amp;#x27;s stores weren&amp;#x27;t that wildly successful).&lt;p&gt;Or did you think people were buying Berkshire at $100 because his daddy was a a borderline irrelevant Congressman for one term?</text></item><item><author>firstOrder</author><text>The first paragraph says:
&amp;gt; The popular view of America&amp;#x27;s upper class is that of an ossified aristocracy. But research from the National Bureau of Economic Research shakes up this view, at least among America&amp;#x27;s richest individuals.&lt;p&gt;Not much has shaken up this view.  Half of the list inherited $400 million or more upon turning 18.  Even the other half of the list are from among a small percentage of America&amp;#x27;s upper middle class.&lt;p&gt;#1 Bill Gates.  Father a wealthy lawyer.  His grandfather was a national bank president.  He went to an elite private grammar school, which had teletypes and computer timesharing back in the 1960s.  His mother was on the board of United Way with the CEO of IBM - a helpful thing for a son who became a billionaire by riding IBM&amp;#x27;s coattails.  Despite all of this, he is still on the bootstrapped, self-made side of the F400 list.  He is not one of the heirs.&lt;p&gt;Next is Warren Buffett.  His father was a congressman.  His grandfather owned a string of stores.  And so on.&lt;p&gt;The rest of the top ten are the Waltons, who inherited Wal-Mart on birth, the Koch brothers, who inherited an oil company on birth, plus Larry Ellison and Michael Bloomberg.  Ellison and Bloomberg are the only middle class people on the list.&lt;p&gt;I do think there are new trends happening at this level, but they don&amp;#x27;t point to what the blog post authors are pointing to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dustinrodrigues</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not that he inherited his wealth, it&amp;#x27;s that he grew up in a privileged environment that gave him opportunities most other people didn&amp;#x27;t have.</text></comment>