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I see this argument frequently and I never could understand quite where it's coming from. Throwing manual labor into the conversation is disingenuous since nob

• lapcat 3y ago
  > nobody would ever make the argument > It's obvious that's not what anyone means I disagree. Citation needed. Regardless of what other people mean by "hard work", what exactly do you mean by it, and how exactly do the wealthy work harder than everyone else? > why didn't they start a company like Tesla Musk technically didn't "start" Tesla, but anyway there are several reasons. For example: 1) They didn't have the capital. Musk himself didn't have the capital to invest in Tesla or SpaceX until several previous businesses were acquired by bigger businesses. eBay acquiring PayPal was the big one. 2) They didn't want to? The smartest people in the world tend not to be motivated primarily by money and greed. Also note that Musk started out working on websites and financial services, which is how he made his initial capital, but that wouldn't necessarily interest auto or space engineers. Remember that Steve Jobs made most of his wealth from Pixar and selling it to Disney rather than from Apple. Was Steve Jobs "smart"? Sure, but WTF did Steve Jobs know about making films in 1986? Nothing. He was just a rich dude with some capital to invest. Why didn't some indie filmmaker become a billionaire instead? Because indie filmmakers don't have the capital.
  • rocgf 3y ago
    > Regardless of what other people mean by "hard work", what exactly do you mean by it, and how exactly do the wealthy work harder than everyone else? You get too caught up in the meaning of "hard work", as if your only purpose it to use its pedantic definition as a gotcha. Hard work in the way you define it is not and should not be rewarded just for the sake of hard work. It cannot work this way and you don't want it to work this way, regardless of what you may think. If we did that, the world would stop working. So whether the wealthy work more or not is irrelevant. > Musk The anti-Musk sentiment is now at cult-like levels and I'm afraid that rational conversation is not on the table anymore. Somehow Elon's name is associated with some of the most revolutionary companies of the past decade, yet still you'd argue that he doesn't work hard, isn't smarter than his engineers, is basically just lucky. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself. If the guy who created SpaceX is not impressive to you, then I'm not sure who is. He is kind of a moron in his tweets and has done some despicable shit, but I am able to separate this from his accomplishments.
    • lapcat 3y ago
      > You get too caught up in the meaning of "hard work", as if your only purpose it to use its pedantic definition as a gotcha. No, I personally don't use the phrase myself in normal conversation and would be glad if it simply disappeared entirely. I'm only responding to the people who use the phrase to justify massive inequality of wealth, so I'd like to hear what you think it means, and how it justifies that inequality. > The anti-Musk sentiment is now at cult-like levels and I'm afraid that rational conversation is not on the table anymore. The submitted article is about the "Five richest men", of which Musk is one, so it's not like I'm bringing up his name out of context. He is the context here. > yet still you'd argue that he doesn't work hard I didn't argue that. I don't even know what "hard work" is supposed to mean here, which is why I'm asking you. You're the one who said, "I don't understand why people refuse to accept that some people are smarter, work harder..." Yet you seemingly refuse to say what you mean by that. If manual labor isn't hard work, then what is hard work, exactly? > is basically just lucky He is lucky. You don't think the following is a lucky set of circumstances to get a massive payoff? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#X.com_and_PayPal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#X.com_and_PayPal "Even though Musk founded the company, investors regarded him as inexperienced and replaced him with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year. In 2000, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to avoid competition, as the latter's money-transfer service PayPal was more popular than X.com's service. Musk then returned as CEO of the merged company. His preference for Microsoft over Unix-based software caused a rift among the company's employees, and eventually led Confinity co-founder Peter Thiel to resign. With the company suffering from compounding technological issues and the lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in September 2000. Under Thiel, the company focused on the money-transfer service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk—PayPal's largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8 million." Without that lucky jackpot, none of your "revolutionary companies" would exist. > Whatever makes you feel better about yourself. I don't really care. I'm not a "failed billionaire". I've never in my life even aspired to wealth. It's not among my priorities. What I do care about is the disproportionate political power exercised by the ultra-wealthy, and how it makes our whole society worse. > If the guy who created SpaceX is not impressive to you, then I'm not sure who is. A lot of people are impressive to me, but I don't give a damn about SpaceX. I don't believe in the Mars fairy tale that's been sold to space nerds, and I wouldn't bat an eyelash if SpaceX folded and stopped operating tomorrow. Furthermore, I think there are too many rocket launches polluting the atmosphere and too many satellites being put in orbit. I'm not a fan.