Not to forget the third category: dumb luck
It’s the right half! (Dumb people getting rich without head start is incredibly rare)
Behind the Bastards covers a few of them. IIRC Dr. Oz grew up poor and went to medical school on scholarship.
He’s not fuck you money rich like Bezos or Musk, both of which lucked into the birth lottery.
Though tbf, Oz got rich by scamming people out of their money with endorsing supplements that don’t work.
Becoming a surgeon and serial scammer sounds like he lacked morals not intelligence.
I agree there should only be two categories, but I think “birth lottery” should be a subset of “dumb luck,” not the other way around.
I cannot think of many dumb people who got rich by themselves. Unless they win the actual lottery instead of the birth lottery
Thing is, you obviously can become reasonably wealthy by following the first chart, if you’re talented and 1 in 10 thousand lucky, whereas the second chart has a significant success rate.
The mega rich are too weak-willed to concede they’ve essentially hit a 1 in 60 million Powerball. Winning the lottery warrants glee, not pride.
Billionaires all exploit the working class—or at the very least they all inherently rely on its occurrence, without exception.
I’d add a third slice to the second pie: steal your way there.
Read a study earlier that stated that the majority of high corporate execs are most likely psychopaths
The youngest billionaire becomes one after inheriting a fortune.
The „merciless exploitation of the working class” is not how they get rich, but how they keep their wealth. If you’re poor, you can’t really exploit the working class. It’s basically just birth lottery with a really really small section for the people with luck and/or hard work.
If you’re poor, you can’t really exploit the working class.
Of course you can. It’s called turning to crime. Most pimps, low level drug dealers, etc, aren’t rich.
