Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> How does someone having wealth stop anyone else from acquiring theirs?

The wealthy person (a) does not need a 9-5 job to subsist and can devote all their time to a launching a business, (b) has a lower tax burden via capital gains, (c) can afford to fail multiple times, (d) can buy their way into a top school if they don't get in on merit, (e) tends to have better family connections, (f) etc.

Then the question is then whether startups exist in a competitive environment, which of course is true. Tech, and the web especially, often approaches a zero-sum game.




"Tech, and the web especially, often approaches a zero-sum game."

Why do you think that? Since 2000, how many brand-new companies and brand-new industries have been created, from scratch? Doesn't look very zero-sum to me.


Entire categories are strongly dominated by one or occasionally two deeply-entrenched players. In the US:

Search: Google

Online shopping: Amazon

Cloud: Amazon, Microsoft distant second

Rideshare: Uber, Lyft distant second

Social media and messaging: Facebook, Snapchat

Digital advertising: Google, Facebook

Music (Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google) and video streaming (Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Google, Amazon) might be most diversified. Cloud (Amazon, Google

Relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16024061


Sure, as I said you may start out with less and have to work harder, but nothing you mentioned is stopping you from doing anything.


Right, it's not stopping you from trying, it's just drastically lowering your odds of succeeding.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: