> nobody would ever make the argument
> It's obvious that's not what anyone means
I disagree. Citation needed.
Regardless of what other people mean by "hard work", what exactly do you mean by it, and how exactly do the wealthy work harder than everyone else?
> why didn't they start a company like Tesla
Musk technically didn't "start" Tesla, but anyway there are several reasons. For example:
1) They didn't have the capital. Musk himself didn't have the capital to invest in Tesla or SpaceX until several previous businesses were acquired by bigger businesses. eBay acquiring PayPal was the big one.
2) They didn't want to? The smartest people in the world tend not to be motivated primarily by money and greed. Also note that Musk started out working on websites and financial services, which is how he made his initial capital, but that wouldn't necessarily interest auto or space engineers.
Remember that Steve Jobs made most of his wealth from Pixar and selling it to Disney rather than from Apple. Was Steve Jobs "smart"? Sure, but WTF did Steve Jobs know about making films in 1986? Nothing. He was just a rich dude with some capital to invest. Why didn't some indie filmmaker become a billionaire instead? Because indie filmmakers don't have the capital.
> It's obvious that's not what anyone means
I disagree. Citation needed.
Regardless of what other people mean by "hard work", what exactly do you mean by it, and how exactly do the wealthy work harder than everyone else?
> why didn't they start a company like Tesla
Musk technically didn't "start" Tesla, but anyway there are several reasons. For example:
1) They didn't have the capital. Musk himself didn't have the capital to invest in Tesla or SpaceX until several previous businesses were acquired by bigger businesses. eBay acquiring PayPal was the big one.
2) They didn't want to? The smartest people in the world tend not to be motivated primarily by money and greed. Also note that Musk started out working on websites and financial services, which is how he made his initial capital, but that wouldn't necessarily interest auto or space engineers.
Remember that Steve Jobs made most of his wealth from Pixar and selling it to Disney rather than from Apple. Was Steve Jobs "smart"? Sure, but WTF did Steve Jobs know about making films in 1986? Nothing. He was just a rich dude with some capital to invest. Why didn't some indie filmmaker become a billionaire instead? Because indie filmmakers don't have the capital.