How to become a billionaire.
Foreword: if amassing money is to a billionaire what swimming is to crossing the English channel, then I am gloriously stood in the shallows on the swim's departing side; fins, goggles, 'budgie-smugglers' and all.
The first billion is the hardest. Apparently.
So to start, forget about what you want. Instead: get intensely interested in what the world wants - or better, needs. Find a ten-billion dollar problem. And solve it. Value capture is the name of the game.
Disciple, determination, grit and unrelenting hard work: these are all minimum requirements. Bare. Minimum.
With curiosity for what the world needs, query your potential and what it is you can offer that is so compelling, so attractive, so useful that no machine can imitate you; no process can emulate you; no product can best you (or best your product). Then cultivate that potential.
Master something, ‘Gladwell’ style. Then master something else. Marry your dual mastery and make beautiful idea babies: physics & finance, engineering & economics, dentistry & design, manufacturing & mathematics, etc. - integrators will inherit the earth.
Sheer desire won’t be enough. Membership to the nine-zero club will be exchanged for something that the world perceives to be of equal or greater value: something that alters culture, changes how people think, or how they work, how they live their lives or how they see their future. You need to be in the business of solving problems that others have not, or cannot.
By this definition, there is no blueprint; embrace delusion in the short term - the father of a most respectable family, comprising enthusiasm, affection, faith, hope, charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.
Accept the role of luck. Some are born into families that encourage education; others not. Some are born into flourishing economies encouraging of entrepreneurship; others are born into war and destitution. Not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness - only a portion of where you end up is completely up to you. Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourself.
Have courage. Don’t think with your legs in an emergency, and remember: if it all goes badly and blows up - make a crater, a big one, and make sure they name it after you!
