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Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Sure, building a business is the way to become rich ....... but most businesses fail. That's not good if you have a family to raise. Most people need stability more than they need to risk everything in hopes and dreams of wealth.
Its not easy to become a billionaire but if you stick with your degree and the resulting 9-5.. you can guarantee it won't happen.. if anything you'd have to live below your means your whole life to even reach the millionaire point. there is such low potential in a 9-5.. its aiming as low as possible and hitting the target. but if you aim high.. (to be a billionaire) there's a good chance you'll not hit the target but you can still land in the millionaire mark.. there are 10 MILLION millionaires.. and thats just in the USA. that is basically 5% of the US population aged 15+ so thats alot more possible than you think.. but the maths show working a 9-5 is not the answer.
You try that and let us know how it works out for you...
the richest americans are self-educated.. there is a big difference between self-education and the traditional "education" ie degree, masters etc etc. but its self education that makes people rich. Bill Gates didn't become rich because of what they taught him in university before he dropped out.. because if it did then everyone in his class would be a billionaire and he wouldn't be as rich.
Look at the Richest Americans...
Gates was lucky, smart, and able to steal the programming others built. (DOS wasn't his invention, he just tweaked it)
Buffet earned his money from what he learned at Wharton.
Ellison was born early enough that he could become a programmer without needing a degree.
David and Charles Koch went to MIT and inherited wealth.
Jim Walton went to Univ of Kansas and inherited his wealth.
Robson Walton went to Univ of Kansas and Columbia and inherited his wealth.
Alice Walton went to Trinity University and inherited her wealth.
(Sam Walton, deceased but relevant, went to Univ. of Missouri.)
Michael Bloomberg went to John Hopkins & Harvard.
Sheldon Adelson went to a trade school and joined the army.
Jeff Bezos went to Princeton.
Larry Page went to Univ of Mich. and Stanford.
Sergey Brin went to Univ of Maryland and dropped out of a Stanford PhD program.
Forrest Mars went to Yale and had a buyout from his father.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sentry12
Its not easy to become a billionaire but if you stick with your degree and the resulting 9-5.. you can guarantee it won't happen.. if anything you'd have to live below your means your whole life to even reach the millionaire point. there is such low potential in a 9-5.. its aiming as low as possible and hitting the target. but if you aim high.. (to be a billionaire) there's a good chance you'll not hit the target but you can still land in the millionaire mark.. there are 10 MILLION millionaires.. and thats just in the USA. that is basically 5% of the US population aged 15+ so thats alot more possible than you think.. but the maths show working a 9-5 is not the answer.
I don't know about that. My dad became a millionaire by using and leveraging his degree. Which again, he was in the right place at the right time (his words). After college and law school he went to work for one of the big accounting firms. They made him partner after 7 years and he subsequently left with his clients at some point. He then started selling financial products (stocks, options, insurance, partnerships) through his company and would take companies public after buying them with partners.
He also made a significant bundle through stock options he was given while he was the CEO of a Seattle based company. You're right that he didn't work 9-5, it was more like 24/7 and gone 2 weeks a month for several months at a time, but without his education he would probably be repairing roofs.
Less than a third of them inherited anything even resembling substantial wealth. I've already posted a link to that fact. Very few. What did the following inherit?
Bill Gates
Oprah
Steve Jobs
Mark Zuckerberg
Larry Ellison
John Paul DeJoria
Howard Schultz
Shahid Khan
List could go on and on...
Less than a third of them inherited anything even resembling substantial wealth. I've already posted a link to that fact. Very few. What did the following inherit?
Bill Gates
Oprah
Steve Jobs
Mark Zuckerberg
Larry Ellison
John Paul DeJoria
Howard Schultz
Shahid Khan
List could go on and on...
Sure, building a business is the way to become rich ....... but most businesses fail. That's not good if you have a family to raise. Most people need stability more than they need to risk everything in hopes and dreams of wealth.
Building a business is one way, but their are other ways too, like investing. Investing isn't luck based, more about strategy. an hardened investor that has studied his field can get well into 15-20% returns a year. since most people don't have families till into their late 20s nowadays, you can build up your wealth after you turn 18 until you eventually do want to raise a family, by then you'd be well off.
in comparison, someone who goes university and gets a degree is $100k+ into debt after graduating and even then, they are not safe because if you remember the recent recession it was those middle class people with 9-5's that suffered the most.. many lost their jobs. whereas savvy investors and entrepreneur wriggled out of it very quickly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lycos679
Look at the Richest Americans...
Gates was lucky, smart, and able to steal the programming others built. (DOS wasn't his invention, he just tweaked it)
Buffet earned his money from what he learned at Wharton.
Ellison was born early enough that he could become a programmer without needing a degree.
David and Charles Koch went to MIT and inherited wealth.
Jim Walton went to Univ of Kansas and inherited his wealth.
Robson Walton went to Univ of Kansas and Columbia and inherited his wealth.
Alice Walton went to Trinity University and inherited her wealth.
(Sam Walton, deceased but relevant, went to Univ. of Missouri.)
Michael Bloomberg went to John Hopkins & Harvard.
Sheldon Adelson went to a trade school and joined the army.
Jeff Bezos went to Princeton.
Larry Page went to Univ of Mich. and Stanford.
Sergey Brin went to Univ of Maryland and dropped out of a Stanford PhD program.
Forrest Mars went to Yale and had a buyout from his father.
I don't know about that. My dad became a millionaire by using and leveraging his degree. Which again, he was in the right place at the right time (his words). After college and law school he went to work for one of the big accounting firms. They made him partner after 7 years and he subsequently left with his clients at some point. He then started selling financial products (stocks, options, insurance, partnerships) through his company and would take companies public after buying them with partners.
He also made a significant bundle through stock options he was given while he was the CEO of a Seattle based company. You're right that he didn't work 9-5, it was more like 24/7 and gone 2 weeks a month for several months at a time, but without his education he would probably be repairing roofs.
Again.. all the richest that you mentioned (excluding the inherited lots) all went to university, however that is not directly linked to their success. If it was, there would be a HELL of alot more billionaires around and all those universities would be having field days charging 7 figure tuition fee's because they have the resources to make their students into billionaires. the truth is, they don't.
your dad's story is one way of becoming a millionaire.. there are, however, many other ways without spending near as much time.. and these ways arn't written in stone.. like today we have kids in their basement earning 8 figures simply through having a popular app on app-store.. your dad did not have that opportunity however it is available to this generation, anyone in this generation. another way people become millionaires is through the internet. there are some blogs out there that get $500k a year through adverts.. there are also plenty of you tube entertainers that earn millions a year through ads/views.. these are all legit ways of becoming millionaire that YOU can do, but your father couldn't during his time.. YES.. a degree would have been the safer bet in his time, but today.. it really isn't.
Last edited by sentry12; 03-20-2014 at 04:08 PM..
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I dunno - Jessica Simpson got her GED 
