Any self made millionaires here? Was it worth it?
Somebody who really came from a poor or working-class background, who had poor parents. Was all of the work required to build a business (or brand, etc.) worth it, looking back? Was there some other path you could have taken that would have been more fun or fulfilling in some way, but might not have brought the wealth?
Would love to hear from experienced people who have been through it. Why is the entrepreneurial route worth it if you don't come from money, or why isn't it?
99 comments
[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 135 ms ] threadTo answer your questions: yes, the work was worth it, because it led to having no financial concerns, which is very relaxing, and financial success let me help and support family members and let my wife support charities. I doubt there would have been a "more fun" path for me because I enjoyed programming so much.
Could you share a bit more about your businesses? Would love to learn more
My early attempts at entrepreneurship at age 17-20 were fun but honestly I didn't have the context needed to succeed. It was working my way up the career ladder and working at VC backed companies that gave me the knowledge to be succesful.
I now own a company worth high 7 figures, and building that was totally worth it, but it was necessary to do real jobs to learn.
Then again, all I did was buy a thousand shares of Microsoft the day they went public.
I do think a “small” loan of a million dollars feels at odds with “self made”.
In sum: Totally worth it, but I always placed a higher priority on jobs I liked.
Wife actually doesn’t want to be richer, because she grew up an unwilling celebrity. Any more rich than we are, and she would perish under the spotlight.
One of my neighbors was an NFL player. He got hurt, retired and has a normal gig, just with more swag than most people. It was tough for his kids to just enjoy little league or whatever.
Making sure to switch companies when you hit a dead road.
Always communicating to your manager what you expect.
Driving the career instead of hoping you get a raise alone makes a huge difference.
Or I also moved to a big city instead of staying in a small city because I knew that my chances for a career are much higher.
I have not studied, and I reached 6 figures by myself and my old friends earn half of what I make (not USA)
And yes I actually enjoy doing a great job slightly independent from what I do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_and_medium-sized_enterpr...
[French for SME]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_ou_moyenne_entreprise
Significant earnings from your own technology and even your own two hands would have to start somewhere.
Then maybe you can get a better idea about bumping it up 1000x or so.
I chased the dream hard. Worked at 4 startups, worked myself to burnout. I went through 4 exits and didn’t get rich (because exits don’t favor non-executives and socially awkward).
I finally got rich just by saving and investing well. I saved pretty much everything I made. It was worth it, because now I get to live the life of The Dude.
Care to share some details?
At my first job, I made 30k / year. And, that sort of set my standard of living. I bought my first house in early 2000s for $250k which increased my cost of living. But, I made it back in increased equity. But, everything else went into investments. I maxed out my 401k with index funds. Non-401k investments went into a mix of technology stocks.
As for The Dude lifestyle. Well, I'm mid-40s. I smoke a lot of weed. Hang out with my friends. We make bad music, art, and comedy together. I bike a lot. I chill under the sunset. I still like to make software, and I'm still relatively good at it, but I have no interest in interviewing nor competing with today's hungry all-stars. So, I just abide.
The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners.
It's impossible for anyone to know whether taking another path would have been better or worse. We only know the path we've taken.
Yet for the most part minimum wage and entry level jobs have not had an increase in pay for almost thirty years.
The result is that we have lost our middle class.
It’s a pay decrease.
I was actually uninspired by the stories I saw of lifestyles of those who “made it”, but YMMV and they generally seem to feel it was worth it.
I'm from a poor family and got pretty wealthy. Yet I'm under no illusion that this was "self-made". No one of us is "self-made". We all depend on a society around us that gives us a language, concepts, knowledge and stability to accumulate wealth. We depend on foundations that have been built by others, on resources extracted by others, on work done by others. "Self-made" is just a comfortable blanket to pretend that it was our hard work alone that made us rich. In reality it's only very, very much luck that allows to to prosper while others are destitute.
The "self-made millionaire" is a capitalistic myth that glorifies exploitation of others. Don't fall for it.
In the same way there are no criminals or good or bad people.
Sure, I don't believe in free will either, but from a practical point of view, you should probably give some credit to millionaires who made it without getting money from anyone. And you should give even more credit to millionaires who made it starting with a poor family. Similarly I won't trust criminals as much as non criminals, even if I'm sure they could have been different if their lives had different circumstances.
Of course we're lucky to live in the richest society ever created in history which gives us opportunities our ancestors didn't have. You can thank capitalism for that.
I feel good about my economic success (almost 1M with just contracting and a failed startup behind). Sure, I'm thankful that my family could afford a computer when I was a kid but nobody really encouraged me to follow this route or gave me any money. My teenage years were all fighting with my parents to stay more on the computer and work while they wanted me to study. And everyone kept telling me there was no money in software development.
I’m not a millionaire, but I earn more than almost everyone I know. It’s a matter of where I was born, when, hobbies I fell into, etc. I mean, I grew up poor as hell, undiagnosed ADHD, the whole deal. I was dealt a pretty bad hand, but placed somewhere with so much opportunity that it worked out despite that.
You can frame it a lot of ways. Yes I worked hard, I tried to do my best (and still do!), I just don’t feel self made.
Having said that, I wouldn’t argue that you aren’t self made. You certainly didn’t have everything handed to you, and I’m sure you’re a hard and smart worker.
If anything I’m just cognizant of the person I easily could have been, or the life I could have had, were a few variables to change very slightly.
Being born before/away from computers would have been a disaster for my career potential, I think.
> Being born before/away from computers would have been a disaster for my career potential, I think.
Oh, yes.
I'm not arguing that no one bears the moral responsibility for their actions or that there are no laws to determine who's a criminal.
> Sure, I don't believe in free will either,
I didn't make any statements about determinism.
> Of course we're lucky to live in the richest society ever created in history which gives us opportunities our ancestors didn't have. You can thank capitalism for that.
> Sure, I'm thankful that my family could afford a computer when I was a kid but nobody really encouraged me to follow this route or gave me any money.
It's been pretty much the same for me.
I think the main point I'm trying to convey is; hard work is not enough. Many people work hard all their live and don't get anything other than a body broken by destitution.
Hard work is not the point of the "self-made" millionaire; luck is.
I’ve blown so many opportunities and still managed to succeed. Life is on easy mode over here.
It does not matter how much you work, in the end you don't deserve the fruits of your labor, because of course, there is no such thing as fruits of you labor. It's the fruits of the society around us.
That's a given. Still, Society needs a way to incentivize people. Some way of encouraging people to be entrepreneurial, curious, industrious and active, to reach beyond what is immediately possible, work on their strengths and on supporting each other to grow in their own.
You should go see how the other half live. There are many people out there working way harder than any of the billionaires on the hardest working billionaire list who can barely put a meal on the table.
There are also many people out there working just as hard and making a paltry 60k a year.
(But again, if you want to lower the threshold, whilst it is indeed more feasible to become "self made" "middle class" for most valid definitions of those two terms, most people's middle class status has a lot more to do with their background and skillset than their work ethic relative to "working class" people)
So yea, people can totally be self made and don't get too hung up literally on the word "self".
> So yea, people can totally be self made and don't get too hung up literally on the word "self".
That's good advise!
I think this view downplays how important luck is. How many dot com millionaires wouldn't be millionaires today if they'd been born +20 years from their actual birth year? Would the market have waited for them?
Luck determines your opportunities - hard work is implied.
This very much, indeed.
It's easier to achieve success, when you're born in rich family, rich country. It's easier, when you have good health, high intelligence and great people skills. In modern world these factors make difference between success and failure. That's why being "self-made" in most case is over hyped. We can compensate our flaws, but some start without them. In almost every case, you won't reach the top from bottom, because gap in wealth is too huge. "Self-made" is survivor bias.
That's a neat way of putting it. I might steal that.
Not the same landscape any more; different routes are available now.
Assumption of savings vehicle being available for 46 years sometimes doesn't hold.
https://www.bankrate.com/retirement/retirement-plan-calculat...
It's highly, highly unrealistic to assume 21 year olds earning 100K AND saving 30% of it, have you met many 21 year olds?
The conditions you mention are hazardous but also true for having a career or being materially free in general, rather than just for how to become a millionaire.
[1]In general every non-medical degree will get you the same pay as a specialized skilled worker but skilled jobs and manifacturing are even less and often with horrible conditions so everyone goes to the degree route and hope to find somwthing or emigrate. I wish I had done Medicine as my mother said.
I made 36k out of college but now make 135k. I saved 0% at the start and save over 30% now. Assuming I’ll keep getting raises I’ll be a millionaire. My goal was to show OP that you don’t need to start a business to become a millionaire, working in tech for a long career with financial literacy will also get you there.
I would agree, yes, stick in tech 40 years, you'd be a millionaire, even 5-10, but at that point, I feel you should exit - and live your life and do your "thing."
It's one thing to try and succeed, another to try and fail, and ironically, when most people have assets/liquidity, they're in the part of the life that failing and restarting is hard, if not impractical all together. I've seen this many a time, growing up in Florida - and it does make the route of being a "office drone" for 40 years, appeasing, or even getting a 100k+ salary via a public sector job, and a pension to retire on and the ease/slowness of the work.
But, then again, this can work for almost "anyone" - meaning the term, millionaire, doesn't mean much what it used too - nor the purchasing power.
It comes down really to what you want in life, and even me, in my early 30's makes me wonder what amount of money/security is necessary to have a life I want.
Millionaire because you worked 40 years in a company, and took it safe.
Millionaire cause you worked in a company, pivioted, and created your own thing and succeeded.
While not related to money, I feel a just comparision is this Star Trek scene, where, there is a bit of missing context if you don't know the series but the tone/message should get across: the easier path doesn't always mean the one that's most rewarding:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHoPLhpw2g4
The whole episode is exciting, and considered one of the best - Star Trek, The Next Generation - Tapestry.
He was literally born in a log cabin, with an outhouse, and rode horses to school. He was a migrant farm worker as a kid and young adult.
Yes, it was worth it. He got to spend money on his kids and grandkids. He got to do pretty much what he wanted to do with his time. He had a much better life than his parents.
The rest of your questions make assumptions that simply aren't relevant. You have a very limited view of how one can build wealth.
Of course it was worth it. It would have been worth it even if I hadn’t succeeded. Work hard, do good work, plan well, build wealth, cultivate relationships. Eliminate unnecessary expenses and waste. All these things are worth doing in themselves.
Also I wasn’t self made. I had white privilege (I distinctly recall two times I was cut slack for youthful hi-jinx where a black person would have gone to jail). I had people who mentored me and supported me. I had people who cut me slack when I needed it and believed in me. If anything my success is due to the strength of my family and friends. So remember to cultivate long-term relationships. Above all demonstrate trustworthiness.
The entrepreneurial route is the best way to build and hold wealth. Because it allows you to become part of the owner class. It’s unfair but if you’re going to live in an unfair system you owe it to yourself to join the class most favored.
Some people choose not to pursue wealth. I know people who consciously chose to teach or otherwise nurture children, knowing they forego wealth by doing so. Some people choose to become artists, or another creative pursuits. Some people choose journalism knowing there’s not a lot of money in it. Keep that in mind if you join the owners class. You’re not special, you’re not better. They simply choose not to do what you did. Many times as a deliberate rejection.
I'll give a 10,000 foot view of my younger years. I learned how to program on my own in the 90s because my school had no books or anything. I got my first computer when I was in college. I didn't study computer science or anything technical.
I kept programming/hacking after school/work. I did eventually get a programming job and I kept hacking after working. I eventually got a brilliant idea to charge money for something I made (after having made hundreds of open source projects).
People started paying for my tool. I was making $500,000+ USD per-year from my tool alone. I quit my "full time" job and kept doing what I always did, hacking on stuff.
Do I regret anything? No. Would I do anything different? Probably not.
I guess the only advice I have is "charge for it".
I had to make a few sacrifices to get where I am now, though. I compromised my mental health quite a bit but I'm slowly returning back to my baseline now. That specific sacrifice became obvious only in hindsight since at that time I wasn't aware how things were really affecting me.
I have some things I wish I had done differently, but they don't chase so much as to call them regrets.