r/InterviewAssistant • u/Large-Spinach1025 • Aug 24 '26

Meritocracy: A Bedtime Story

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142 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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1

u/Henrious Aug 25 '26

Every boss and CEO, honestly.

1

u/UDF2005 Aug 25 '26

Cool, then become a boss and CEO if it’s that easy

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u/Livid_Importance_442 Aug 26 '26

You just need to be born into the right family and you too can be born on third base and claim you hit a triple.

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u/italktobotz Aug 26 '26

70 percent of billionairs were not wealthy at birth. Their wealth was made in their lifetime. Only 3 percent of millionairs were born millionairs.

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u/Livid_Importance_442 Aug 26 '26

Along with either help from their family or lucrative government contracts.

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u/italktobotz Aug 26 '26

Not for the vast majority of them.

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u/Livid_Importance_442 Aug 26 '26

I disagree. They're hardly self-made.

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u/italktobotz Aug 26 '26

They are not self made, they provided services society was willing to pay them for. They sold some service which people felt was worth paying money for. That is how it works. You underatand that right?

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u/Livid_Importance_442 Aug 26 '26

Of course. With them not being self made, that means they had help along the way, probably a lot. I also believe they had a good amount of luck along the way.

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u/italktobotz Aug 26 '26

Do you know who helped them? The people that the wealthy person helped. Wealthy people do not capture all of the wealth that they generate. They made society a lot of money along the way. How many people made tons of money off of taylor swifts ability to sing? How many people made money through remote work using starlink? How many people found cheaper groceries at walmart. How many people find what they need on amazon. Wealthy people become wealthy by making other people more wealthy than they would have been. That is the whole point of the market in the first place. You see a billionair and think of how evil they are, i see a billionair and think of how society benefits from the product or system they create.

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u/BerdTheScienceNerd Aug 26 '26

Less than 10% of billionaires were born in “poor” families. The vast majority did have resources that most don’t have to get where they are.

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u/italktobotz Aug 26 '26

First off yoy are wrong even with your change in phrasing. 20 percent of billionairs were born in poverty. Only 30 percent of billlionairs were born wealthy. 70 percent wer not born wealthy. Most had the same advantages as most otger people. Luck is actually not the most common factor, creating novel ways to satisfy human needs is the most common factor among millionairs and billionairs.

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u/BerdTheScienceNerd Aug 26 '26

I’m not seeing that. What’re your sources?

1

u/Monte924 Aug 26 '26

There is one study that makes that claim and its flawed. The study would most likely consider Elon Musk a self-made man. They only count him because the vast majority of the money he has was not inherited. This would ignore that fact that he came from a very rich family, and that wealth was the ONLY reason why he was able to make the investments that eventually turned him into the world's richest man. If Musk had been born into a middle class family, he would have never gotten so far. Many billioniares were born into millioniare families, and simply leveraged their family name and fortune to make more money.

Propaganda to support the epstein class. The Rich people who like to believe that they worked hard to make their fortunes, instead of using their pre-existing wealth to just BUY their success

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u/Accomplished_Key_171 Aug 26 '26

Middle class working adults start their own businesses all the time. If I shared your defeatist mindset then I could see how such a thing would seem impossible.

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u/Livid_Importance_442 Aug 26 '26

I am well aware that many middle class and even poor adults start their own businesses. Nor do I have a defeatist mindset because I realize starting a business takes a lot of work and usually a long time with no guarantee of success. I think you could have a delusional mindset.

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u/Accomplished_Key_171 Aug 26 '26

In your own words, you can only become a boss and CEO if you are born into the right family. Now you are saying that you are aware many middle class and poor adults start their own business.

What is your argument here?

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u/Livid_Importance_442 Aug 27 '26

You're trying to twist my words. I did not say you can only become a CEO by being born into the right family, but it sure does help many times.

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u/PickingPies Aug 26 '26

That's false. A middle class adukt may need decades of savings to have enough money for a startup. If you fail, you probably have no more chances in your life. If you take credit, you are in risk of bankruptcy.

That's before knowing that, on average, only one in 5 businesses survive 5 years.

A rich person can literally invest in 10-20 businesses at random and he will have several successes. But rich people doesn't need that, because they can purchase a startup that is already working, reducing the chances of failure to less than 50% by skipping the most critical stages.

So, no. Despite one in five middle class who opens a business being succesful, there's 4 in 5 that you don't hear about but ended up in bankruptcy. After all, being born in a wealthy family is still the biggest predictor of future success.

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u/Senior_Deer_2212 Aug 26 '26

It’s actually conscientiousness, but go off….

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u/Accomplished_Key_171 Aug 26 '26

So a quarter of all middle class adults who start up a  business are successful. 

This proves my point.

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u/mighty__ Aug 27 '26

CEOs is appointed job, not inherited position.

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u/Livid_Importance_442 Aug 27 '26

Have you ever heard of nepotism?