Trump inherited his fortune, not exactly a bootstrapped entrepreneur.

Inherited fortune made by an immigrant.

Technically wasn't his father born in the US?

His father inherited his money from his own father, who moved to the Klondike in order to dodge the German draft and became wealthy by running brothels catering to gold prospectors.

His Father/Family had a net worth of $250M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Trump

It's estimated he Inherited $40M http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2016/mar/07/did-do...

Trump himself claims he started off with "a small loan of 1 million dollars" https://youtu.be/mkKBXJRySFw?t=20s

The famous quote from Trump himself is "My father gave me a small loan of $1 Million dollars" (around 0:40 in this video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXEOFHf1q9A

On the other hand, that's less than the investment funding I've seen to some folks on HN, and it's the same amount of capital that would be required if you wanted to open a McDonald's store [1]. But I think a majority of people would regard that as starting from a wealthy position, and certainly not bootstrapping anyway.

[1] https://www.franchisehelp.com/franchises/mcdonalds/

Don't forget that $1 Million at that point in time is different than $1 Million now.

Good point. As far as I can tell the loan must have been around 1968 - 1971, and this inflation calculator [1] puts that at $7 Million in today's money.

[1] http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

He's an inherit lots of money and talk about how awesome I am entrepreneur, I'm sure people like that will still be able to buy their way into the US.

So half of SV should still be safe.

Well, for one, he's not that kind of entrepreneur. He made his fortune by starting off extremely wealthy, and then expanded it by defrauding people and going deeply into debt, rather than producing anything of value.

He's a property developer which is very different to the average sv start-up and property development is lot more dodgy - and I am not just talking about Donald some of the stuff that came out in the candy brothers trial in the uk is quite shocking

Trump inherited his money and if he'd never started a business but invested it conservatively in index funds instead he'd have significantly more money than he does now.

By the time Trump inherited his money he was already very wealthy. See when he started in business and when his father died.

Clearly you dont understand that people with 300 Million dont just put it into the market. That's why the whole Hedge Fund/Private Wealth Management industry exists. This argument is so far from reality.

Well, why don't they? Is the market not large enough to take 300 million invested via ETFs? Is it factually incorrect that if Trump had invested in the market, he would have made more money than he did actively managing it?

More importantly, if I have the choice between roughly equivalent outcomes where one consists of decades of busywork and the other consists of taking a small part of the money and doing good in the world, why in the world would I want to be building a real estate empire?

Of course, for Trump the reason would be because he's a narcissist who needs to see his sense of self-worth boosted by seeing his name slapped onto buildings in giant letters and his face in the news. But for someone who wants to merely lead a good life? You take out however much you need to actually make a positive impact, and leave the rest in index funds.

That said, I'm not rich so I don't understand the system and why things need to be the way you describe. Please provide some insight.