Wow, what fantastic writing. I often find tech entrepreneurs and HN readers are too obsessed with success and wealth, often explaining away any accusations of greed by claiming it's their "passion" and talking in mystic terms of the tech revolution they're a part of.
The biggest thing I would call a "success" in my life is the joy I've received from good friends and family, and the experiences I've had with them. Things that take a long time to cultivate and over which I often have little control.
Value is created when both sides want what the other side is offering more than what they have. There is a case to be made that your wealth is a reflection of the value you have created in the world. Do Big Things in the world, and you may find yourself wealthy. It's not necessarily greed. When you speak of success, and friends and family, most people on HN would agree, but put them on a parallel track to wealth. They are more to do with happiness imho. Rock on.
> Value is created when both sides want what the other side is offering more than what they have.
Value is created when, by your action, you change the world to a state that you, or another person, find preferable to the previous state.
On the other hand, trade is profitable when both sides want what the other side is offering more than they have (with some caveats involving deceit).
That was a quibble with a minor stumble you made, now for a reply of substance:
As for wealth being a reflection of the value that you have created, it might be. It might be that you inherited it. It might be that you stole it. It might be that you tricked someone into believing you had something they wanted, and traded for it. Maybe you extracted rent (in the study-of-economics sense), without creating value. Maybe your wealth comes of virtuous value-generation, but you earned more wealth per value than another person, by virtue of skin colour or gender or whatever. There are many many ways to acquire wealth, and scant few of them require creating value, and even fewer reflect virtue in a linear and straightforward way.
And similarly, value that you create may not convert to wealth. Who created more value, Torvalds or Zuckerberg? Not that Linus is poor, but he's not a billionaire, afaik. I propose for consideration that it may be far easier to create value when wealth is not a priority (though I concede that in some circumstances, vehicles like corporations help with scaling your value-creation).
Now, all that said, you might amend your position thus: "Wealth earned in certain ways, with certain restrictions, is roughly proportionate to value created, perhaps modulo a scaling factor beyond anyone's control." Okay, I sort of agree. BUT! If you believe this, it follows that spending your wealth on yourself is destroying (consuming) value. I make a sandwich, wealth is generated. I eat the sandwich, wealth is destroyed. I make $1000 of software and get paid accordingly, wealth is created. I spend it on plane tickets, I consume/destroy the wealth. Only the money you give away (including via taxes) is wealth created-and-not-consumed. Bill Gates was a leech on society (rent-seeking friction-inducing market manipulation)... until he decided not to be, and redeemed himself twice over.
So, in summary: while there is a relationship, in some limited circumstances, between wealth and value-creation, taking wealth as a proxy for virtue is spectacularly mistaken.
I spend it on plane tickets, I consume/destroy the wealth.
Only the money you give away (including via taxes) is
wealth created-and-not-consumed.
So if I buy a bottle of wine to have with dinner, and my wife and I drink it with dinner, I have destroyed wealth, and am a mooch. If I give the wine-money to a bum who then uses it to buy a bottle of Mad Dog and drinks himself into a stupor, I have created wealth, and am a benefactor to mankind.
Creating value isn't necessary or sufficient for capturing revenue streams. When a new technology is invented, for example, there are usually many people involved: there is basic science and mathematics research laying the groundwork, applied research, manufacturing, commercialization, design, marketing, etc. Typically the revenues do not go to these players proportionally to their contribution. For example, a scientific breakthrough may produce considerable value, but it is not typically possible for the scientist(s) making the breakthrough to personally capture the value, because one cannot own scientific breakthroughs. Instead, the value accrues to society generally, including people who did not create it—it might form a major contribution to an upcoming product of mine, for example. If the product is successful, I'll gain wealth, but the scientist whose work enabled the product won't. (Patents are an attempt to provide an accounting mechanism for owning at least those kinds of breakthroughs classed as "inventions", but have their own set of problems, and at least in principle don't apply to basic math/science discoveries anyway.) And some people simply make money by capturing economic rent.
Because your income usually doesn't have anything to do with the value you produce, it has more to do with what your employer can get away with paying you.
The biggest thing I would call a "success" in my life is the joy I've received from good friends and family, and the experiences I've had with them. Things that take a long time to cultivate and over which I often have little control.