It seems the theme is business ownership. Of course, Reddit might be populated more by tech-savvy folks, leading to the talk of startups there. But overall, those who seem to make big sums of money are those who have equity in successful businesses. That includes the people who run used tire shops, electrician companies and fast food franchises as well as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Buffet is smart enough to have built a business that buys equity in other businesses (not to mention having the brains to know what equity to buy).
Remember selection bias. There is usually a fair amount of luck involved in becoming rich, and asking rich people how they became that way just tells you how those people became rich, not necessarily how you can become rich yourself. It's a little like asking lottery winners how they picked their numbers (obviously becoming rich legitimately requires real work and isn't totally random, but you get my point).
There may be some bias in the Reddit thread, which is admittedly slanted toward sofware/tech startups, but I also draw on some other sources. The book "The Millionaire Mind," Thomas Stanley looked at a variety of wealthy people and found that many who accumulated wealth did so through their own (often mundane) businesses. Others were those with high-income jobs and enough sense to invest wisely.
The Forbes list also seems to contain those who largely built or somehow own (through purchase, birth or connections) business equity.
My personal experience confirms this. Those I know who seem to have legitimate wealth are a junkyard owner, a used tire store owner, an owner of an electrician outfit, an owner of a financial services company, and a couple of doctors who've invested well. Oh, and a retired NFL player who also didn't blow his cash while he played.
There is luck in getting a new business to take off, for sure. I'm not trying to downplay the risks, but I am trying to show that there is a key to how those that made it did so.
One could also have born to Sam Walton or a Hilton or something like that. But keep in mind that those parents made their wealth building businesses.
If someone knows of a better way to do it, or other ways, I'm all ears. Winning the lottery works for so few, that I'm inclined to consider it negligible.
>"The book "The Millionaire Mind," Thomas Stanley looked at a variety of wealthy people and found that..."
I haven't read that book, but it sounds like survivorship bias. Eg, there were likely many others who also owned businesses who failed to accumulate enough wealth to make it into his sample of the 'wealthy'.
Question is, what is the proportion of those business owners to the ones who end up wealthy?
For example, it could just be that getting rich has more to do with living way below your means and saving alot early in your career, giving you money to invest and long enough horizon for that investment to pay off, regardless whether you invest in your own business, the financial markets, your education, etc.
But research like that will never answer the question correctly if it only looks at sample of 'survivors'.
Yes, the survivors are the ones who accumulated wealth. If there are other paths to accumulating wealth, they should have survived as well, but aren't apparent in the sources I've seen so far.
There are many businesses that fail and people who've lost money on equity in businesses. It's by no means a sure-fire way to become wealthy. But from what I've seen it's the main method that makes it to the "wealth" finish line at all.
What other paths have lead to "survivors" on the road to wealth? There may well be paths other than what I've proposed. Feel free to share them with me.
It definitely won't give you a surefire recipe for money, but the human brain is an amazing pattern-matching machine and someone might be able to derive some useful insights from seeing enough examples of "How I became successful."
