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But he bootstrapped his way to the top! And no amount of "well, that isn't the whole story" is going to dissuade people from rallying behind the bootstrapper.
But he bootstrapped his way to the top! And no amount of "well, that isn't the whole story" is going to dissuade people from rallying behind the bootstrapper.
But he bootstrapped his way to the top! And no amount of "well, that isn't the whole story" is going to dissuade people from rallying behind the bootstrapper.
They're probably leaving out the fact that he also delivered newspapers in the early hours before work everyday also !
The guy was more than just a Janitor, as it points out he was a very good Day Trader. The article makes it seem as though you can create $9 million in wealth off a Janitorial position and that's just not true.
Plus as others have pointed out, you are stupid to have a significant amount of money and live as if you are Chris Gardner in the Pursuit of Happiness for goodness sakes. I'm a Minimalist and I'm MGTOW, but you can be a Minimalist while still enjoying your damn life!
He was good at picking stocks. Worked out great for him, but not everyone is good at it. Most active fund managers can't beat a basic market index with any consistency. He could just as easily have lost all his money - but we never would have heard about it then (or anyone else who does that) because it's not a great news story.
And it seems there were a lot of details left out about other work he did.
He could just as easily have lost all his money - but we never would have heard about it then (or anyone else who does that) because it's not a great news story.
True. There's definitely some selection bias at play. For every guy like this who ends of with millions, there are a million who didn't and who won't end up in an article (except in the obituary section).
True. There's definitely some selection bias at play. For every guy like this who ends of with millions, there are a million who didn't and who won't end up in an article (except in the obituary section).
Not necessarily. As much as I chide the "all you gotta do is bootstrap" crowd, there's nothing in the story to suggest that he wasn't a "buy and hold" investor. Day traders are usually little more than gamblers using the stock market instead of a roulette wheel.
The "buy and hold and live nine decades" strategy works. But I have no idea why this is in the economics forum and not the personal finance forum -- because this is an individual success story, not an economic trend. He outlived his peers. He invested more money and kept expenses down.
It would be an economics story if he did all of that and somehow managed to NOT become wealthy.
Not necessarily. As much as I chide the "all you gotta do is bootstrap" crowd, there's nothing in the story to suggest that he wasn't a "buy and hold" investor. Day traders are usually little more than gamblers using the stock market instead of a roulette wheel.
The "buy and hold and live nine decades" strategy works. But I have no idea why this is in the economics forum and not the personal finance forum -- because this is an individual success story, not an economic trend. He outlived his peers. He invested more money and kept expenses down.
It would be an economics story if he did all of that and somehow managed to NOT become wealthy.
Buy-and-hold works with a truly diversified portfolio. How many individual stocks did this guy own?
He was good at picking stocks. Worked out great for him, but not everyone is good at it.
Yes. We can even go a step further. If you have 100,000 people playing the stock market, pure chance by itself tells us that a few of them will have a lucky streak and get rich, regardless of what they do.
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