May 7, 2008 at 07:20Experience Curve, Context, and American Millionaires
He recalled the expression, “If you have not become a millionaire before 40 years old, you will no longer become a billionaire.” I used to think: 1. this is another rule in the style of Donald Trump (which are generally correct, but useful only when you came to them yourself, but then why do you need Trump?), 2. this is the headline of an interesting but useless article, about how scientists analyzed the American rich over the past 1000 years and came to this conclusion. Actually, this phrase is really true and from it certain wisdom can be extracted.
As often happens, a stupid expression makes sense when the whole context is opened. Recently read a postGrigory Gromov, where he writes that the average American businessman-millionaire is a 56-year-old man who has “burned” in business three times before. That is - thrice lost everything and fell to the bottom by the property slice of society. After that he went to work already for hire, saved up money, reopened his own business, and after three or four years lost everything again. Again he spent all his vitality and means after many years, in order to lose everything again in the end. And so, right up to that - usually not earlier than the third or fourth time, when it was its next enterprise in a long series of failures, it finally worked (due to the totality of circumstances: market conditions, accumulated life experience, and much more), and finally it was only then that he began, closer to 60 years old, to harvest the success.
The expression takes on a new meaning: "If by the age of 40 you have not gained experience to create a business worth $ 1 million, you are unlikely to reach the top of the business." Instead of the image of the snickering bourgeois, who has already decided for everyone, a quite reasonable idea opens before us, but the point is not about that.
There is a concept according to which the structure of the industry directly depends on the experience curve. Its supporters believe that in many sectors of production unit costs are reduced as a particular company gains experience and the total volume of output increases. Like any concept, it reflects only part of reality, but it has practical benefits. This is a change in worldview c “to be good, you need to work a lot” on“To be good, you need to have experience, insider information on a particular business . ” Self-development and work efficiency are undoubtedly very important topics, but if you really want success this is not enough.
As often happens, a stupid expression makes sense when the whole context is opened. Recently read a postGrigory Gromov, where he writes that the average American businessman-millionaire is a 56-year-old man who has “burned” in business three times before. That is - thrice lost everything and fell to the bottom by the property slice of society. After that he went to work already for hire, saved up money, reopened his own business, and after three or four years lost everything again. Again he spent all his vitality and means after many years, in order to lose everything again in the end. And so, right up to that - usually not earlier than the third or fourth time, when it was its next enterprise in a long series of failures, it finally worked (due to the totality of circumstances: market conditions, accumulated life experience, and much more), and finally it was only then that he began, closer to 60 years old, to harvest the success.
The expression takes on a new meaning: "If by the age of 40 you have not gained experience to create a business worth $ 1 million, you are unlikely to reach the top of the business." Instead of the image of the snickering bourgeois, who has already decided for everyone, a quite reasonable idea opens before us, but the point is not about that.
There is a concept according to which the structure of the industry directly depends on the experience curve. Its supporters believe that in many sectors of production unit costs are reduced as a particular company gains experience and the total volume of output increases. Like any concept, it reflects only part of reality, but it has practical benefits. This is a change in worldview c “to be good, you need to work a lot” on“To be good, you need to have experience, insider information on a particular business . ” Self-development and work efficiency are undoubtedly very important topics, but if you really want success this is not enough.