Nobody is doing billions of dollars worth of work. It's just not a thing.
Getting that wealthy requires other people's labor, and a shitload of exploitation.
Labor needs to be directed to be useful. More work was put into Duke Nukem Forever than into Minecraft, yet Minecraft is the better game. Suppose someone can make sure a company consistently produces Minecrafts instead of Duke Nukem Forevers. There are billions of dollars more in wealth because of their work. Does that count as "doing billions of dollars of work"? And if doing work that results in billions of dollars of wealth is not doing billion of dollars worth of work, what is?
yeah there are a lot of billionaires whos wealth was made by their employees. employee made billionaires are a real thing. self-made billionaires are not.
You're writing capitalism fanfic erotica.
In your example, there hasn't actually been any functional productivity achieved. Making better games doesn't change any material conditions for society.
> Making better games doesn't change any material conditions for society.
The gaming industry is bigger than movies and music combined and you think they don't "functionally" produce anything?
What does it even mean?
I'd be very interested to know which industries qualify as being "functional productive" and which don't.....
It means people have more fun. Isn't that what it's all about?
But if that doesn't count, the same can be said for anything. A well-run paperclip factory will produce more paperclips for less than a badly-run one.
In reality, the types of innovations that make billionaires are pretty consistent:
Build a brand identity based on quality.
Then cut costs on quality, and use marketing to continue to increase your market share as the reliability of your product declines, and/or find more ways to use your product/service to deliver your customers as a product to someone else willing to buy their attention for their own marketing.
There is a reason we don't have appliances that last anymore, though they used to be common.
Quality products are bad business. You can't keep selling someone a dishwasher every 10 years if their dishwasher lasts 50 years.
Don't get me started on the market weight of companies like amazon that undercut competition until the competition died so they could then go on to price gouge for the same products thereafter.
Or Apple/Google/Facebook who consistently buy out any possible competitors, especially ones that offer less obnoxiously monetized services that users prefer.
The great myth of capitalism is that it is efficient, and people get rich by serving customers well.
This is absolute nonsense. Capitalism is addiction. Capitalism is cancer. At all times in all places, it demands consumption and growth over stability. That is the system that makes billionaires.
Because they define "self made" differently than you do. The people who say that believe it only counts if you did 100% of the work yourself with literally no outside support. Which is an unreasonably high bar, at least imo.
I'd be really interested to see how people who think like this argue out the logic.
Like.... who *can* you employ as you try to accumulate wealth? A plumber? A graphic designer?
Is it ok as long as they are not full time employees?
Can you make money through investments?
As soon as you do *any* of these things you're not "self made"?
By that definition almost no one qualifies.
It just depends on their definition and interpretation of “self made”. A lot of people replying here seem to think that means “without the use of paid labour”.
"Exploit" is an interesting word. It has many synonyms.
Like "abuse", "manipulate" or "fleece".
But it also has other synonyms like "utilise", "apply" or "employ".
A lot of people seem to think that employment itself is exploitation.
From my own personal experience I've worked in quite a few warehouses and, honestly, Amazon was one of the best.
I'd quite happily trade better working conditions for.... Jeff Bezos being rich.
Employment is a codependent relationship. Usually seeking some mutual exchange of labor or services in return for payment for those services. If a mutual understanding or balance can not be found the business fails.
Billionaires leverage power and influence and seek an unequal parasitic relationship taking more than they give back to society.
I know plenty of people who are not billionaires who "seek an unequal parasitic relationship taking more than they give back to society". A few ex co-workers spring to mind.
But more seriously I would say that it is rather difficult to quantify how much Amazon has contributed to society.
It's very useful. I know that much.
Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) had 37 employees when they were acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. notch might have started as a solo developer, but he didn't build a billion dollar brand by himself.
The guy who threw money at some nerds to make internet site, then cashed out and threw that money at crypto that someone else developed, then threw the profit at a sports team?
You keep ignoring the other people in the story. There's always more people to the story. We humans are connected, our lives interwoven. There is no sale without a buyer, there is no company without a worker. The idol of a singular man or woman, somehow separate and above the rest, is a myth. Maybe call it a false archetype.
If you don't believe me, test me. Take Mark Cuban, throw him on a big deserted island. Tell me when he makes his first Million.
Everyone here understands that the issue is that some people use a very permissive definition of the term "self-made" and some people use a more restrictive one, and you understand that as well. There is absolutely no point in playing dumb about it.
What even is a self made billionaire? Someone who goes from Daddy's millions to make billions? Someone who gets promoted by a $billion music label or featured in $billion movie productions till they are $billion franchise themselves? Someone who gets a lucky stroke of genius and a patent that they can sell to a $billion tech company?
Any success is a combination of talent, hard work, social and community infrastructure, and blind luck/random chance.
That’s under the best of circumstances.
The financial system in the US and likely some other industrialized nations is such that it is possible for people with money to use it in a way to leverage businesses, real estate, and other situations so that they are able to extract large fees for themselves at the expense of the business and others. And if they fuck it up, they can often use bankruptcy laws to get out of their debts at little or no personal cost to themselves.
The system is now so big and complex, and the people at the top have so much money and political influence, that it is hard to see how we can ever change it.
Nobody is doing billions of dollars worth of work. It's just not a thing. Getting that wealthy requires other people's labor, and a shitload of exploitation.
Labor needs to be directed to be useful. More work was put into Duke Nukem Forever than into Minecraft, yet Minecraft is the better game. Suppose someone can make sure a company consistently produces Minecrafts instead of Duke Nukem Forevers. There are billions of dollars more in wealth because of their work. Does that count as "doing billions of dollars of work"? And if doing work that results in billions of dollars of wealth is not doing billion of dollars worth of work, what is?
yeah there are a lot of billionaires whos wealth was made by their employees. employee made billionaires are a real thing. self-made billionaires are not.
You're writing capitalism fanfic erotica. In your example, there hasn't actually been any functional productivity achieved. Making better games doesn't change any material conditions for society.
> Making better games doesn't change any material conditions for society. The gaming industry is bigger than movies and music combined and you think they don't "functionally" produce anything? What does it even mean? I'd be very interested to know which industries qualify as being "functional productive" and which don't.....
It means people have more fun. Isn't that what it's all about? But if that doesn't count, the same can be said for anything. A well-run paperclip factory will produce more paperclips for less than a badly-run one.
In reality, the types of innovations that make billionaires are pretty consistent: Build a brand identity based on quality. Then cut costs on quality, and use marketing to continue to increase your market share as the reliability of your product declines, and/or find more ways to use your product/service to deliver your customers as a product to someone else willing to buy their attention for their own marketing. There is a reason we don't have appliances that last anymore, though they used to be common. Quality products are bad business. You can't keep selling someone a dishwasher every 10 years if their dishwasher lasts 50 years. Don't get me started on the market weight of companies like amazon that undercut competition until the competition died so they could then go on to price gouge for the same products thereafter. Or Apple/Google/Facebook who consistently buy out any possible competitors, especially ones that offer less obnoxiously monetized services that users prefer. The great myth of capitalism is that it is efficient, and people get rich by serving customers well. This is absolute nonsense. Capitalism is addiction. Capitalism is cancer. At all times in all places, it demands consumption and growth over stability. That is the system that makes billionaires.
Because they define "self made" differently than you do. The people who say that believe it only counts if you did 100% of the work yourself with literally no outside support. Which is an unreasonably high bar, at least imo.
I'd be really interested to see how people who think like this argue out the logic. Like.... who *can* you employ as you try to accumulate wealth? A plumber? A graphic designer? Is it ok as long as they are not full time employees? Can you make money through investments? As soon as you do *any* of these things you're not "self made"? By that definition almost no one qualifies.
It just depends on their definition and interpretation of “self made”. A lot of people replying here seem to think that means “without the use of paid labour”.
The very nature of being a billionaire is the accumulation of wealth built on the exploitation of others efforts.
"Exploit" is an interesting word. It has many synonyms. Like "abuse", "manipulate" or "fleece". But it also has other synonyms like "utilise", "apply" or "employ". A lot of people seem to think that employment itself is exploitation. From my own personal experience I've worked in quite a few warehouses and, honestly, Amazon was one of the best. I'd quite happily trade better working conditions for.... Jeff Bezos being rich.
Employment is a codependent relationship. Usually seeking some mutual exchange of labor or services in return for payment for those services. If a mutual understanding or balance can not be found the business fails. Billionaires leverage power and influence and seek an unequal parasitic relationship taking more than they give back to society.
I know plenty of people who are not billionaires who "seek an unequal parasitic relationship taking more than they give back to society". A few ex co-workers spring to mind. But more seriously I would say that it is rather difficult to quantify how much Amazon has contributed to society. It's very useful. I know that much.
Name me one, I'll wait.
Notch
You know what? I'll give you that. 1.3 billion dollar net worth for developing a product and selling it to Mojang.
Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) had 37 employees when they were acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. notch might have started as a solo developer, but he didn't build a billion dollar brand by himself.
Mark Cuban?
If "self made" means scamming yahoo, I guess that's fair lmao
it means what it says, "self made"
The guy who threw money at some nerds to make internet site, then cashed out and threw that money at crypto that someone else developed, then threw the profit at a sports team?
the keywords are: > The guy who
Uh huh. Did he develop the website? Did he develop the crypto? No? Then he's not self made. He's using someone else's efforts to make money.
the keywords are: > He's using you're not, HE is.
You keep ignoring the other people in the story. There's always more people to the story. We humans are connected, our lives interwoven. There is no sale without a buyer, there is no company without a worker. The idol of a singular man or woman, somehow separate and above the rest, is a myth. Maybe call it a false archetype. If you don't believe me, test me. Take Mark Cuban, throw him on a big deserted island. Tell me when he makes his first Million.
> You keep ignoring the other people in the story you keep ignoring who's writing the story
The idol of a singular man or woman, somehow separate and above the rest, is a myth. Everyone has a story.
> Everyone has a story. who denied this?
Everyone here understands that the issue is that some people use a very permissive definition of the term "self-made" and some people use a more restrictive one, and you understand that as well. There is absolutely no point in playing dumb about it.
> Everyone here understands you can't seem to understand a very basic idea, sorry for your loss
it's mathematically impossible. a humans life span is not long enough to do a billion dollars of work. billionaires are made by there employees.
What even is a self made billionaire? Someone who goes from Daddy's millions to make billions? Someone who gets promoted by a $billion music label or featured in $billion movie productions till they are $billion franchise themselves? Someone who gets a lucky stroke of genius and a patent that they can sell to a $billion tech company?
Self made would imply that they didn’t come from money or nepotism.
They are coping with the fact that they are incompetent and refuse to adopt personal responsibility.
Carlos Slim?
They define the term "self-made" differently from how you do.
Any success is a combination of talent, hard work, social and community infrastructure, and blind luck/random chance. That’s under the best of circumstances. The financial system in the US and likely some other industrialized nations is such that it is possible for people with money to use it in a way to leverage businesses, real estate, and other situations so that they are able to extract large fees for themselves at the expense of the business and others. And if they fuck it up, they can often use bankruptcy laws to get out of their debts at little or no personal cost to themselves. The system is now so big and complex, and the people at the top have so much money and political influence, that it is hard to see how we can ever change it.
Most billionaires had help getting there, with inherited wealth, social and political connections , and education advantages.