Billionaires like to think they worked hard but in reality they exploited others and were lucky in some form or another. Exploitation comes from paying workers as little as possible and/or having such terrible work conditions to maximize efficiency to the point that who cares if someone dies working. Fighting unions and keeping costs down (including pay) means more profit. It also means you can charge less to force other competitors out of business unless they can do the same amount of exploiting to keep costs down.

Beyond that, there's just general business and economic concepts like operating at scale which luck or generational wealth can help shortcut there.

[–] sweetpotato@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Being born wealthy isn't really optional. It's actually necessary and a big reason why this system is so absolutely terrible, because the American dream is a capitalist myth to manipulate the masses.

The exceptions are not always exceptions, like the apartheid boy Elon and the 1 in a million that actually is an exception is drilled into our brains by the media like how gambling companies make ads about the people that win the lottery.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

There have been a couple (or maybe one or a few) that started with very little. A lot more had a gift or loan from a parent for enough to buy land or start a business, often that was less than $100,000

As much as Musk's family had money before, his initial big money came from his share of his brother and his city guide software "zip2" which they sold to Compaq for a few hundred million. Lots of people have made more complex or bigger programs with no more wealth than an average middle class family.

Then x.com (the 1999 one, a bank) which became part of PayPal which sold to eBay for $1.5 billion which Musk got a share of

Then he made SpaceX then Tesla* and Tesla made him a billionaire through his ownership of a large part of it

*Tesla was made of Musk's money and A/C Propulsion electric vehicle conversion system. It was incorporated with SpaceX's incorporation papers with the company name changed. A/C propulsion's drivetrain was replaced by a new system after a year of production of the roadster

[–] nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 days ago

Being born wealthy can also just be wrapped into luck. But i separated it because it isn't strictly required, however unlikely, to become a billionaire. Exploitation and luck in some form is required every time.