The post I am responding to made a blanket statement about the group. I don't have a survey[1] of what percentage of billionaires are or aren't self made - so I thought about it, and of the ones available for recall, all were self-made. I assume what the poster talked about exists, but it seems to not be the most obvious case.
[1] While replying to you, I did a quick Google and found this link: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/billionaires-self-made According to this, what the poster was talking about was more true in the past. ~40 years ago, 60% of billionaires had come from rich families, while 10 years ago (when this article is from) that number was down to 32%. One can presume that this trend continues over the last decade as well. So at least 70% of billionaires are self made, and 20% (according to the same source) come from very poor families.
So at the very least, we can say that the post I am replying to is true for at most 30% and is false for 70%.
> The post I am responding to made a blanket statement about the group.
I think they can fend for themselves.
> I don't have a survey[1] of what percentage of billionaires are or aren't self made - so I thought about it, and of the ones available for recall, all were self-made. I assume what the poster talked about exists, but it seems to not be the most obvious case.
Inherited billionaires don’t make for exciting stories. That’s why they aren’t at the top of anyone’s mind. Was the point.
But “self-made” can also be loaded:
> [1] While replying to you, I did a quick Google and found this link:
You’ll see that that he defines certain people like Zuckerberg as not really being “wealthy” but “upper-middle class”. But I guess economists might have a certain bias towards the upper end of the spectrum when they only research wealth and those entities and people who have it.
I feel like you're being somewhat dense here. Zuck is obviously a billionaire because he created Facebook, not because he inherited wealth and managed to not pay taxes on it. Splitting hairs on whether he was "wealthy" or "upper middle class" doesn't really take away from that, especially since my original comment had him and Gates called out as the ones who grew up with more money.
To sum up although again, not sure it can penetrate the density, the conversation is about whether billionaires are "people born billionaires and manage to not pay taxes" as is the original assertion, or not.
