I wonder how you'd classify Kylie Jenner. On one hand, she's inherited the Jenner name and I'm sure wealth, however my understanding is she works quite hard and has earned a lot of her own money.
Don't get me wrong, building a sustainable beauty brand on is no small feat. However, her family name alone is like inheriting a gigantic free marketing budget.
Remember that things that aren't money can have a lot of value, like followers and viewers.
Let's say right now I figured out how to produce the greatest beauty products in the world. They beat all competitors by a significant margin and cost less. They're available on my website right now.
How much money would I have to spend in order to start from zero and sell a few million units? It would definitely cost me thousands if not millions to start a national advertising campaign. Kylie didn't have to spend anywhere near as much as other equivalent companies to build its sales.
Self made doesn't have to mean being an orphan and starting with $0. Zuckerberg and Gates for example had more support and opportunity than 99.9999% of the planet (Harvard education, wealthy parents, access to computers, strong network), yet they clearly deserve full credit for their achievements. Kylie Jenner is no different. There are plenty of celebrity kids out there, but none who founded a cosmetics company that was valued at $1.2 billion.
She founded her company from the money she got given from TV work. She was given the money, the brand and the audience. She could have gotten rich(er) selling flavored bubble gum.
When and who was the last time a person who came from proportionately "nothing" became a billionaire? Maybe by nothing I mean parents with no savings account.
Not surprising? It's virtually impossible to be a dollar billionaire under 30 without inheritance. Heck, the average 30-year-old doesn't even have close to $10 million.
Only an extremely small number of people have done that, e.g., Palmer Luckey and Kylie Jenner.
Impressive story! It certainly does feel self made.
But I'm going to guess that his net worth is entirely based on his ownership in LAZR, which is currently worth 1/3 of when this article was published (putting his net worth at 500M assuming he hasn't been diluted further).
I'd argue that a $100,000 grant from an investor like Peter Theil isn't functionally all that different than an inheritence in all the ways that matter.
Remember that recent Paul Graham article posted here advising students to get into the most selective school they could for networking reasons? Not because those schools have a better education.
If this guy went to a different university, I bet they would have never had the opportunity to demonstrate their venture to Peter Thiel. Getting into Stanford is itself is something that functions a lot like an "inheritance." The mere fact that you are there is a gigantic leg up.
To me, "self-made" would be building a profitable business completely bootstrapped with either personal funds or maybe at most a small business loan from a bank.
But then again, this whole distinction of "self-made" is a bit of an exercise on where you draw that line.
It's pointless to even try and calculate this number. There are ~3000 billionaires in the world. Most/all of them have children, and I'd wager a large chunk of these children have access to >$1B of the wealth, whether on paper or not. The only special thing about these 15 is that their parents are dead and/or their inheritance or trust fund has already kicked in.
I mean, what's the takeaway in your mind? If there was 1 person in the whole world that owned half its wealth, would you find it un-damning because it's just 1 person?
If the problem is that there aren't enough self-made billionaires, it's bad journalism to take an arbitrary slice of 15 out of 2700 of them and act as if they're representative of the problem. We could redistribute their wealth and everyone in the world would maybe get a couple of dollars.
I think if someone wants to make a point about whether billionaires are self-made or not, they should look at a more representative sample.
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How many even earn (from scratch) $100 Million by age 30?
One would only have to save an average of $1000/hr, 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week, for a brief 10 years to reach just that level.
Clearly it’s too easy.
Don't get me wrong, building a sustainable beauty brand on is no small feat. However, her family name alone is like inheriting a gigantic free marketing budget.
Remember that things that aren't money can have a lot of value, like followers and viewers.
Let's say right now I figured out how to produce the greatest beauty products in the world. They beat all competitors by a significant margin and cost less. They're available on my website right now.
How much money would I have to spend in order to start from zero and sell a few million units? It would definitely cost me thousands if not millions to start a national advertising campaign. Kylie didn't have to spend anywhere near as much as other equivalent companies to build its sales.
The myth of America is that anyone can be a billionaire, if they are talented and put in the work. This is not true.
Only an extremely small number of people have done that, e.g., Palmer Luckey and Kylie Jenner.
I'm going to do a wild guess here and say that the average 30-year-old, outside the valley bubble, doesn't even have $1 million.
This moment in time figure is silly. What about the kids today that become billionaires before 30?
A 30 year old has had around 12-14 years since their first summer job.
Compound growth over 20, 30, 40, 50 years is far greater.
But I'm going to guess that his net worth is entirely based on his ownership in LAZR, which is currently worth 1/3 of when this article was published (putting his net worth at 500M assuming he hasn't been diluted further).
Remember that recent Paul Graham article posted here advising students to get into the most selective school they could for networking reasons? Not because those schools have a better education.
If this guy went to a different university, I bet they would have never had the opportunity to demonstrate their venture to Peter Thiel. Getting into Stanford is itself is something that functions a lot like an "inheritance." The mere fact that you are there is a gigantic leg up.
To me, "self-made" would be building a profitable business completely bootstrapped with either personal funds or maybe at most a small business loan from a bank.
But then again, this whole distinction of "self-made" is a bit of an exercise on where you draw that line.
I think if someone wants to make a point about whether billionaires are self-made or not, they should look at a more representative sample.
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