Paul now uses “company” to mean unicorn, similar to how he uses “startup” to mean potential unicorn (startups are not companies trying to make only millions according to his meaning). He knows that this is confusing, yet he doesn’t choose to clarify his words except through a footnote. I find this frustrating.
Talking about the Gini coefficient is just ridiculous, because the usual reason Gini is referenced is to talk about what has happened to the wealth of the majority of people, not the Forbes list. There may be more tech billionaires, and that may make the world a better place: however what many people are worried about is what happens to everyone else that isn’t a billionaire... His argument doesn’t reference them at all except perhaps to imply that “a few people can become ultra-wealthy and that is good”.
Perhaps he could argue that Gini is a useless index because it depends on a few ultra-wealthy people, and that the index tells us nothing about the vast majority of people.
An honest title would be “How a few people become very rich”.
I want to see a graph by cohort of current wealth for all the founders inducted into YC: at a population level would that graph show that founding a company with YC was a worthwhile investment for your time? Even if the expected return is high, is the ergodicity such that it is still a loser’s bet? I”m curious whether it is a losing proposition for most, with a few big winners.
Talking about the Gini coefficient is just ridiculous, because the usual reason Gini is referenced is to talk about what has happened to the wealth of the majority of people, not the Forbes list. There may be more tech billionaires, and that may make the world a better place: however what many people are worried about is what happens to everyone else that isn’t a billionaire... His argument doesn’t reference them at all except perhaps to imply that “a few people can become ultra-wealthy and that is good”.
Perhaps he could argue that Gini is a useless index because it depends on a few ultra-wealthy people, and that the index tells us nothing about the vast majority of people.
An honest title would be “How a few people become very rich”.
I want to see a graph by cohort of current wealth for all the founders inducted into YC: at a population level would that graph show that founding a company with YC was a worthwhile investment for your time? Even if the expected return is high, is the ergodicity such that it is still a loser’s bet? I”m curious whether it is a losing proposition for most, with a few big winners.
Edit: re: Gini: here is the real graph of upward mobility: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-decline-of-upward-mobil... (edit: beware that the graphs are full of assumptions - think about them carefully because they are deceptive IMHO).