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WalterBrighttoday at 2:30 PM2 repliesview on HN

> Yes it did.

I don't recall any. I remember when people were all agog when Gates became one.

> successful businesses were led by young people across the entirety of human history.

Sure. But billionaires?

> And you should not praise someone for simply being a billionaire.

If they're self-made, they earned the praise.

> That's a bad thing to be.

Creating value is not a bad thing. Being a self-made billionaire means they created a billion dollars of value. They didn't take it from you or anyone else. Creating SpaceX, Starlink, etc., are good things.


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cweaganstoday at 4:21 PM

> If they're self-made, they earned the praise.

They aren’t and they didn’t.

> Being a self-made billionaire means they created a billion dollars of value. They didn't take it from you or anyone else.

Nobody is a “self made” billionaire. That value you’re talking about didn’t just spring into existence. It had to come from somewhere. There is always a source.

Who flew the rocket? Who built the rocket? Who built the parts for the rocket? Who mixed the fuel?

Building big ambitious things is a good thing. But consolidating an amount of money that nobody could ever reasonably spend into the hands of one person (especially when that money is just the excess value produced by the workers) is unethical and unneeded.

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mylifeandtimestoday at 5:49 PM

> Being a self-made billionaire means they created a billion dollars of value.

two of the people on the list did it via online gambling. Which is by definition a zero-sum game. No value was created.

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