Reading 05: Startups

Why do we, as a society, value wealth? We are often told that “money doesn’t solve your problems,” but honestly, I cannot think of one problem that money doesn’t solve. In our society, money is power. Just as Graham mentioned in “How to Make Wealth”, “money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice, they are usually interchangeable”. It is evident that our society idolizes and rewards the risk-takers and the self-made (“self-made”) business owners, and I think this stems from the American Dream.

I didn’t grow up very wealthy. I come from a low-income family of immigrants, so, for us, money was never something we had an abundance of (my parents don’t even have high school educations). But my family immigrated to the U.S. in hopes of a better life, and even though we struggle to make ends meet, the lack of money hasn’t prevented us from living a better life in America than the life my parents had growing up in Palestine. I would like to believe that, because of my upbringing, I don’t value money as much as society does, but my actions say otherwise. Why would I attend the University of Notre Dame if I didn’t care about money? Why would I decide to major in computer science if I didn’t care about money? The motivation behind attending this school and choosing the major I chose stems from opportunity. Notre Dame presented me with the best opportunity to kickstart my future, and computer science was the most lucrative major for me — opportunity-wise. What I’m trying to say is, I think our society values opportunity just as much as we value money — if not, more. I believe this is what Paul Graham was trying to convey when he stated that “thanks to technology, the rich live more like the average person”. Just as was mentioned in class, it’s not that the rich “live more like the average person,” it’s that the average person can now live like the rich. YouTube stars, high-tech startups, Instagram “influencers,” etc. all demonstrate that wealth is attainable by the average person. Now more than ever, America actually feels like the land of equal opportunity, and undoubtedly, technology has played a significant role in making this true. The message this sends is that the American Dream is achievable through risk-taking and starting businesses (or brands), but while there is nothing inherently wrong with this, we start to, inadvertently, penalize individuals who don’t take risks or start their own businesses when we adopt this mentality.