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Someone Asks “What’s Your Excuse” With ‘Billionaire Beginnings’ Pic, Gets 15 ‘Real World’ Replies
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Someone Asks “What’s Your Excuse” With ‘Billionaire Beginnings’ Pic, Gets 15 ‘Real World’ Replies

Someone Shares A ‘Garage Beginnings’ Pic And Asks “What’s Your Excuse?”, Gets Shut DownSomeone Asks People Shut Down 'Garage Beginnings', Saying It Falsely Blames Poor People For Being PoorPeople Shut Down 'Billionaire Garage Beginnings' Pic By Explaining Why It's A MythSomeone Destroys The Ideology Of Someone Posts The Garage Beginnings Of Famous Brands Asking 'What's Your Excuse', Gets Shut Down With FactsSomeone Shows How The Ideology Of Someone Posts The 'Humble' Beginnings Of Famous Brands Asking 'What's Your Excuse', Gets Shut Down By Explaining It's All PrivilegedSomeone Posts The 'Humble' Beginnings Of Famous Brands Asking 'What's Your Excuse', Gets Shut Down With Facts About Their Founders
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Just like all the other ‘isms,’ capitalism relies on some form of indoctrination to survive. We are taught from a very young age about the rewards of succeeding at school, working at a steady job, buying plenty of stuff, eating processed foods and just believing that life is a competition searching for ways on how to become rich.

As long as the theoretical possibility of starting a business from scratch to make one’s own fortune exists, the idea is that people will continue to work hard and chase it, despite the increasingly vanishing odds.

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    To keep the millionaire dream alive we need role models, and in our times these are often people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos.

    These ‘self-made’ billionaires are often venerated for their humble beginnings, spawning their business empires from a garage with a virtuous combination of technical brilliance, business acumen and absolute dedication to their work. If these guys can do it, anyone can! What’s your excuse?

    Happily, more and more people are coming to the realization that the current form of the neoliberal capitalist system is unsustainable not just to the vast majority of people, but for the Earth itself. Things have to change, so why not start by busting the myth that we are all potential millionaires, if only we worked harder at it?

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    Our wealth is our shared humanity and our beautiful planet, we don’t need to become millionaires to live our own personal ‘American Dream.’

    Perhaps we should follow Bhutan’s lead and measure progress in “gross national happiness,” rather than simply the net worth. And while we’re at it, let’s find better role models than these ‘self-made millionaires’ and their ideas to make money, focusing on the people who achieve genuinely good things for all of us!

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    anonymous

    anonymous

    Author, Community member

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    This lazy panda forgot to write something about itself.

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    anonymous

    anonymous

    Author, Community member

    This lazy panda forgot to write something about itself.

    James Caunt

    James Caunt

    Author, Community member

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    James is a Bored Panda reporter who graduated with a BA in Peace And Conflict Studies and an MA in African Affairs. Before Bored Panda, he was an English teacher and also travelled a lot, doing odd jobs from beer-slinging to brickie's labourer and freelance journalism along the way. James loves covering stories about social and environmental issues and prefers to highlight the positive things that unite us, rather than petty internet squabbles about fictional characters. James is the grumpy, contradictory one who thinks that Bored Panda, due to its large audience, has a social responsibility to inspire and inform its readers with interesting issues and entertaining, well-researched stories. Let's do our bit to make our little corner of the internet a smarter, more truthful and less angry place!

    Read less »

    James Caunt

    James Caunt

    Author, Community member

    James is a Bored Panda reporter who graduated with a BA in Peace And Conflict Studies and an MA in African Affairs. Before Bored Panda, he was an English teacher and also travelled a lot, doing odd jobs from beer-slinging to brickie's labourer and freelance journalism along the way. James loves covering stories about social and environmental issues and prefers to highlight the positive things that unite us, rather than petty internet squabbles about fictional characters. James is the grumpy, contradictory one who thinks that Bored Panda, due to its large audience, has a social responsibility to inspire and inform its readers with interesting issues and entertaining, well-researched stories. Let's do our bit to make our little corner of the internet a smarter, more truthful and less angry place!

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    Frances M
    Community Member
    5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Who says you are successful only if you are a millionaire or richer? I know a woman who was widowed young, lived in a council owned terraced house with her young kids, and sold groceries from a table she setup just inside her living room window, through the window to her neighbours. By the time she was old, she’d bought her own house with a small shop on the ground floor that she sold groceries and sweets out of. That to me is a success story.

    nanashi
    Community Member
    5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    with enough money, you can buy your own Success In Business While Being A Self-Made Person.

    Drew
    Community Member
    5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We don't even have a lot of the most basic "leg ups" these days. Here in the UK, one of the most fervent critics of our centre-left opposition Party, Lord Sugar, was recently ridiculed for going on about how he "made it rich despite growing up in a council estate". Effectively, he benefitted from policies that he now campaigns relentlessly against.

    Drew
    Community Member
    5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    JK Rowling is another fervent critic. She was a single mum on State benefits when she wrote the first Harry Potter.

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    Frances M
    Community Member
    5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Who says you are successful only if you are a millionaire or richer? I know a woman who was widowed young, lived in a council owned terraced house with her young kids, and sold groceries from a table she setup just inside her living room window, through the window to her neighbours. By the time she was old, she’d bought her own house with a small shop on the ground floor that she sold groceries and sweets out of. That to me is a success story.

    nanashi
    Community Member
    5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    with enough money, you can buy your own Success In Business While Being A Self-Made Person.

    Drew
    Community Member
    5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We don't even have a lot of the most basic "leg ups" these days. Here in the UK, one of the most fervent critics of our centre-left opposition Party, Lord Sugar, was recently ridiculed for going on about how he "made it rich despite growing up in a council estate". Effectively, he benefitted from policies that he now campaigns relentlessly against.

    Drew
    Community Member
    5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    JK Rowling is another fervent critic. She was a single mum on State benefits when she wrote the first Harry Potter.

    Load More Replies...
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