from Hacker News

How to Get Rich (2019)

by mottiden on 11/13/22, 9:01 PM with 56 comments

• by imtringued on 11/14/22, 7:07 AM

  I think it is sad that we let others steal our freedom and then fall for the illusion that we need to steal others freedom just to get our own freedom back.

  >You want wealth because it buys you freedom—so you don’t have to wear a tie like a collar around your neck; so you don’t have to wake up at 7:00 a.m. to rush to work and sit in commute traffic; so you don’t have to waste your life grinding productive hours away into a soulless job that doesn’t fulfill you.

  >The purpose of wealth is freedom; it’s nothing more than that. ... It’s about being your own sovereign individual.

  Don't want a collar around your neck? Tie collars around other necks!

• by jongjong on 11/14/22, 3:09 AM

  Some industries including large subsets of the tech industry have become essentially zero-sum games. It's almost impossible to make money in those industries because they have been monopolized. If you happen to launch a software service in those industries, you will not be able to get any serious traffic from Google or social media because those platforms favor certain providers over others (e.g. US-based providers). Also you need to be careful of launching in an industry which is about to become monopolized.

  So if you're not based in the US or you don't have many personal connections, you shouldn't dream too big; you need to find a niche which isn't going to be gate-kept.

• by SuperSandro2000 on 11/14/22, 10:59 AM

  Have rich parents. Add ready as that.

• by ilrwbwrkhv on 11/14/22, 2:28 AM

  He gets wealth vs status wrong.

  Status is nothing but the "bigger guns diplomacy."

  Historically, the highest status person has always been the warlord.

  Today, the highest status person is arguably also the biggest warlord in the world: the US president.

  Wealth on the other hand is made through trade. You can buy a certain amount of status (guns) with that and climb your way up.

  But it is always about guns, humans are monkeys after all. And if you have the guns, you can just take wealth from the trades-folk.

• by janef0421 on 11/14/22, 11:30 PM

  If wealth is assets that produce income for me without doing anything, then, logically, either someone else is doing work for which I receive some portion of the income, or I am benefitting from inflating asset prices, which make it harder for others to purchase those assets. This is socially unproductive and I have no real interest in it.

• by TbobbyZ on 11/14/22, 2:33 AM

  Naval admitted this was a clickbait title. It should read “How to Get Wealth”, which he admits requires luck/timing.

  One criticism I have of Naval is he thinks anyone can get wealth.

  Overall his material is A+ for anyone with average intelligence.

• by lo_zamoyski on 11/14/22, 6:33 PM

  Just the status game being played by equating status with wealth? This parallels how Nietzsche's slave morality vilifies power, but this vilification is merely how the powerless and weak express their will to power.

• by circular_lights on 11/14/22, 3:09 AM

  Excellent advice on how to play the game best according to the rules*

  * rules as in "rules for thee, not for me"

• by dchia on 11/14/22, 2:54 AM

  Despite all the criticism, this remains one of the best threads on Twitter so far.

• by 1letterunixname on 11/14/22, 1:37 AM

  There's a hilarious book by the same name by an actual (late) billionaire. It won't help you get rich unless you change your thinking and go with what works.

  PS: I'm always sad that so many corporate employees are content with not attempting to do the work to get rich and put their futures and their family's future in the hands of capricious managers who will happily fire them and make it next to impossible for them to be rehired anywhere else if they're "too old". If you're not trying to get rich in meaningful ways, then someone else is getting rich off of you.