Are there just a lot of really rich people out there? Or am I over-cautious and they're operating without a safety net?
The Internet also has a lot of 25-year-olds dying of stomach cancer.
The likelihood that an individual person will have that happen is very low, but those 1-in-10,000 events are magnified by reporting bias (in favor of the unusual) when you're on the Internet.
Couple this with the positive reporting bias of social media, and it looks like there are even more very rich people than there are.
However, the answer is that there are still a fair number of rich people out there. Self-made tech rich people are extremely rare-- you're about as likely to win the startup lottery, if you weren't born into VC connections that take you directly to founderdom, as you are to win the lottery-- but there are plenty of people making money the old-fashioned way: inheriting it.
The Internet also has a lot of 25-year-olds dying of stomach cancer.
The likelihood that an individual person will have that happen is very low, but those 1-in-10,000 events are magnified by reporting bias (in favor of the unusual) when you're on the Internet.
Couple this with the positive reporting bias of social media, and it looks like there are even more very rich people than there are.
However, the answer is that there are still a fair number of rich people out there. Self-made tech rich people are extremely rare-- you're about as likely to win the startup lottery, if you weren't born into VC connections that take you directly to founderdom, as you are to win the lottery-- but there are plenty of people making money the old-fashioned way: inheriting it.