alt Hacker NewsWe can't romanticize making money, it's a ruthless field where mostly politicians, the military complex, and drug traffickers thrive, and a few startups that cater to the global economy, which are very very rare, so rare than only 30 out of more than 6000 have succeded in Paul's own words.
Amazon was first, then Uber went world wide, so did Airbnb, and now OpenClaw, so yes, the AI gold rush opened the gates for new opportunities but only a few will make it. We all can run the race for sure but most of us will only get tired at the end while the lucky few will take all the prizes and our corpses will be their podium, as it's supposed to be.
Still, we have to run because there is a chance, a very slim chance which is more than zero hope.
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> only 30 out of more than 6000 have succeded
At becoming billionaires. Many more than that succeeded at making a good chunk of money that was life-changing for them, their families, their early employees, etc.
So I think your reading of the chance of "hope" are overly cynical. Of course it's not easy to make millions, but it's not so bleak and the market isn't so ruthless that it can't be done for those who try intelligently and persistently.
And of course, even below that level of wealth, there are tens of millions of people who work regular jobs and are able to afford pretty high standards of comfort and living by any yard stick that's ever been used to measure.
"Drug traffickers" is a great term to use here, because arguably many of the startup stalwarts that went on to make billions are those that did so by selling addictive convenience (Amazon, AI-anything, etc.) or brainrot (all social media), all of which function as harmful drugs that emasculate people.
This aren’t great example are they?
Amazon is famous for being a terrible company to work for, on the logistics side.
Airbnb has caused all sorts of social problems.
Uber results in people working for peanuts and has circumvented labour laws.
I think there are some startups that have created large scale value without doing something malevolent, but not those ones.
Things like Linear. Good tool for software dev, no one harmed.