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Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by deegles on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:08PM (#17820593)
How could a startup begin to address wealth inequality?
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by trevyn on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:11PM (#17820622)
Take a wealthy person, ask them what they would do if they had zero money and connections, and teach that as a skill.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by rlglwx on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:23PM (#17820730)
No. Ask a person why they are "successful" and they will give you the answer they tell themselves. "I worked harder than others, I am smarter, I went to a good school, etc. etc." While they think that's true, it's mostly hogwash and most people can't tell you why they are or aren't successful.

The problem is that most of what it comes down to is luck. Luck in the sense of time and place. People born into a wealthy family or even with two loving parents are lucky and way more likely to be wealthy than those that were born without.

Warren Buffett came of age in the greatest period of prosperity in American history. Bill Gates came of age right at the time that PCs became possible. Bezos was first to market on a new and unproven platform. Zuckerberg got lucky because he was able to get started when broadband penetration in developing countries was finally starting to get some traction.

No man is an island and teaching success as a skill is just silly in my opinion.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by clay_the_ripper on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:35PM (#17820843)
Bill gates, bezos and zuckerbeg aren’t really good examples of “wealthy” because they are so beyond wealthy that it’s not even really worthwhile trying to emulate them for practical purposes. The very definition of the ultra rich is that there are only a few of them. (Realistically no one is going to become a billionaire, and it’s not even worth trying really. 100 million is already unlimited money for all intents and purposes) So it’s much more practical to think about people that are able to provide for their families comfortably. When you start thinking about wealth in terms of billions, it completely skews perception of what actions you shod be taking, and is ultimately a pretty unrealistic and unnecessary goal. I see so much “entrepreneurship” garbage peddling where kids now think being an entrepreneur is about becoming a billionaire and redefining entire industries. When it’s really much more practical and useful to think about how you can run a small business. If you get good at that then you can run a medium business and make make a few million which is plenty enough to be happy and live a good life.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by NickM on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:42PM (#17820908)
I think you're both right and wrong. In our current system, yes, a lot of success comes down to luck. However, that doesn't mean that it's impossible to remove a lot of the luck from the equation.

For just one example, if you look at the average person's level of financial literacy today, the situation is appallingly bad. So statistically, it's true that you have to be lucky to be financially literate, but that doesn't mean it inherently requires luck to be able to learn these things. It's just not stuff that most people are even aware of, because nobody is teaching them. It's not an unfixable problem.

At the extreme end of the spectrum, yes, it requires a lot of luck to become as rich as Gates or Buffett, but I don't think that's what OP is trying to achieve. Helping everyday people achieve better financial outcomes is a very different goal from trying to break into the top 0.1%, and is much more achievable IMO.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by falcor84 on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:27PM (#17820766)
That's very simplistic. Of course they were lucky, but the thing that differentiated these people your mentioned from everyone else with their original privilege was their ability to make the best of the opportunities awarded to them. “Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity"
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by jasonbarrah on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:30PM (#17820798)
The whole point of his question was that you take those advantages away from those men and see what they would do. The key is their creativity and ability to find ways to make money.

Bill Gates was actually famously asked a version of this question. (What would you do if you were poor with no education and lived in a third world country.) He responded "Buy Chickens".

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by tabtab on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @03:44PM (#17821446)
The one thing in common about the mega-rich is that they are obsessed with money and/or success. Warren's family members often complained he didn't spend enough time with the family because he was in his den sifting accounting and finance material. Warren is in love with numbers.

The thing is the obsession trait doesn't necessarily scale. If you cloned a billion Gates', that would NOT give us a billion Microsofts. It's not a zero sum game, but pretty close to one. There's only so much room in any given niche.

Another thing, I've been using and following Microsoft for about 3 decades. They didn't do anything special or innovative in my opinion, at least not relative to their size. MS just did smart marketing, acquisitions, pricing, and packaging. MS mostly leveraged monopoly in one category to gain another category: not raw merit. If MS never existed, the world would be the same or even better off: more OS and office-software choice. I have a bit more respect for Steve Jobs: he spotted useful product configurations before any one else (with means). MS just copied/purchased trends after it was obvious they were catching on.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by lamarpye on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @04:40PM (#17821949)
Really? The world would be the same if Microsoft never existed or better off?

No doubt IBM would have led innovation if not kneecapped by M$.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by tabtab on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @05:48PM (#17822507)
I don't mean exactly the same, but in terms of general innovation. There were decent, good, and great alternatives to ALL of their key products: PC GUI's, spreadsheets, word-processors, desktop databases, etc. Heck, they purchased most of them from other co's. Granted, MS usually charged less, at least initially, but that's because they took an up-front loss in that product to gain market-share. But then stagnated once they killed competition. I know an obvious MS-Access bug not fixed for 15 years.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by Someone1234 on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:47PM (#17820942)
> The whole point of his question was that you take those advantages away from those men and see what they would do. The key is their creativity and ability to find ways to make money.

And the answer is that most wealthy people, when reset to zero, would never be able to regain their wealth. The only way they may have a shot is by exploiting things from their formally wealthy life (e.g. contacts, connections, niche industry knowledge, or an ivy league degree).

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by jonnycoder on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:33PM (#17820821)
You have no problem ignoring all the hard work that goes into becoming successful and your comment comes across as... one should just sit around waiting to be lucky. You say that during the golden age of internet based business opportunities and funding. I suppose that you think Tiger Woods was lucky enough to win 79 tournaments and 14 majors because he got lucky?

Opportunity = hard work + luck

We as individuals should strive to learn how to be successful by looking at those who are successful, and many of those qualities are right in front of our faces. Hell just search for "discipline" or "confidence building" on youtube and one can find how to apply the correct qualities within a few hours. Try David Goggins if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by xkcd-sucks on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:22PM (#17820725)
Take a wealthy person, ask them what they're addicted to, and milk them for all they're worth
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by Zaskoda on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:35PM (#17820845)
Most wealthy people did not start off with zero money and connections. Most wealthy people are born into privilege. They can afford to fail and try again. They have family and friends that can help them access resources and connections that the rest of us don't even know exist much less know how to get ahold of.

Despite the notion of the "American Dream", in our country, if you are born poor you will most likely stay poor.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by refurb on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:40PM (#17820884)
Privilege as defined by what? Having good teachers? Having parents not drug addicted or in prison?
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by fucking_tragedy on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:30PM (#17820800)
Not sure how a start up can commodify business connections, family ties, inheritance or being born with money, a support network and in a good school district.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by stephengillie on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:17PM (#17820674)
Step 1: Gain money and connections, one way or another.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by rm_-rf_slash on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:26PM (#17820759)
This question comes across as a little callous, but I think the intent is genuine and is worthy of inspection.

In general, the best things that can be done to address inequality from a for-profit perspective is to reduce consumer costs. Now the obvious problem is that if you cut costs by paying your own people less - or by opting to get your business’s goods and services from suppliers that also pay poorly - then you have only moved inequality from one place to another. But if you invent a way to create goods or offer services at a lower cost without having to cut wages - perhaps by being more efficient with energy or input materials - then you can pass some savings along to the consumer while the rest go to the shareholders as profit. Competitors may go out of business, but new corporations and jobs will take their place. For example, almost everybody uses electricity for light; few use candles, and even then it is more of a luxury than a necessity (like a romantic bedroom scene).

Technological innovation, in my opinion, is the only way that a for-profit corporation can make money and reduce inequality.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by soared on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:35PM (#17820841)
Financial education in schools, or some sort of scheme where the benefits of long-term investing are made viable for poor people.

A start up could do some mental trickery / game theory that benefits poor people. Say a start up takes 10% of every pay check, but buys all your groceries. They invest the difference into your 401k. The person gets groceries and a retirement fund, without having to know about investing.

Obviously this doesn't really make sense, but the idea is that poor people don't have financial knowledge, don't know where/how to save money, don't have the time to cut costs, etc.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by hodder on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:10PM (#17820606)
Education
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by analog31 on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:36PM (#17820847)
Indeed, I believe that the three keys to success are wealth, education, and work, in that order. If you don't have wealth, then education is next. Perhaps education is like a kind of wealth.

Rich people are likely to tell you that work is the most important, because they tend to have a heroic self image.

Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by conanbatt on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:36PM (#17820848)
Offer extremely expensive deluxe services, like space travel.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by devcpp on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:35PM (#17820835)
Technically, by producing a product with value for the wealthy, and redistributing its money to poorer employees. In short, capitalism. And you'd be using it as intended.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by benlorenzetti on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:14PM (#17820650)
Competitor to the Federal Reserve :)
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by fake-name on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @03:04PM (#17821079)
Take money from venture capitalists, give it to actual people who need help?
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by Fomite on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:33PM (#17820820)
Deliberate and structured hiring and mentoring of under-represented groups.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by sdinsn on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @05:12PM (#17822239)
Abandoning meritocracy won't be good for anyone.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by Fomite on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @06:06PM (#17822666)
The assumption that what currently exists is a meritocracy is part of the problem.
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by apersona on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @06:42PM (#17822906)
And moving further away from it is the solution?
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by Fomite on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @06:49PM (#17822947)
It's not moving further away. It's increasing your catchment area. It's reaching down into the pool, to people who didn't go to the right school, or have the right connections, who still never the less show promise and aptitude and say "You. Come with me. We're going to do cool things."
Re:Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days – Most Americans... by justicezyx on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:12PM (#17820625)
Why down vote?

Isn't the market growth unequally benefit people? Isn't this a fundamental question that everyone should spend some time on?