CDR: Re: Nader

[James A, Donald]

     --
 > > > > no matter how good you are.  You can get rich enough to live
 > > > > off your investments, sure -- but reaching the billionaire
 > > > > league is a multi generational project.

Tim May:
 > > > This is not true. Most billionaires in the United States did it
 > > > in a single generation. On the Fortune list of billionaires,
 > > > most made the money by starting companies. Only a handful are
 > > > heirs.

Ray Dillinger:
 > > Most of them come from well-to-do families rather than filthy rich
 > > families, that's true.  But few or none come from blue collar or
 > > really poor families.

Tim May:
 > Of three billionaires I can think of off-hand, all came from poor
 > families.
 >
 > For example, Gordon Moore of Intel. Grew up in a fishing village,
 > Pescadero, halfway between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Modest
 > means.
 >
 > (And his partner in forming Intel, Bob Noyce, now deceased, grew up
 > on a farm in Iowa.)
 >
 > For example, Larry Ellison of Oracle. Grew up dirt poor in the
 > midwest (Chicago, I believe, or some city similar to Chicago).
 >
 > These are two out of the top 5.
 >
 > Add to this Jim Bidzos, a near-billionaire from his Verisign
 > holdings alone. Poor, enlisted in Marines, etc. And there's the guy
 > who hired me into Intel in 1974, a poor kid from the poor side of
 > the tracks, name of Craig Barrett. Now CEO of Intel and worth
 > several hundred millions.
 >
 > (Oh, and Andy Grove, Hungarian refugee, arriving penniless in
 > 1956-7.)
 >
 > And look to Warren Buffet, Sam Walton, and a slew of others.
 >
 > I'd say your "few or none" point has been decisively disproved by
 > example.

The book "the millionaire next door" does provides plausible evidence that 
in their origins, millionaires are close to being a cross section of America.

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          James A. Donald
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