From meeting startup founders and influencers.
Being right on one trend is enough to get you rich.
Being right twice gives you fuck you money.
Being right three times, you make history.
Paul Graham got rich when Viacom was acquired along with the growth of Yahoo stock. The first few batches of Y Combinator got him Fuck You money. Repeatedly picking the best companies like Airbnb and Coinbase got him in a name in history.
Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Max Levchin’s Paypal got them rich.
Peter Thiel got Fuck you money from putting some of that into getting 10% of Facebook. Then history with Palantir.
Elon Musk got Fuck you money with Tesla going public and making history with SpaceX becoming profitable.
With people like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg they were right 3 times at the same company.
Steve Jobs was right with personal computing then Pixar and finally the iPhone 9.
Mark was right with the initial Facebook and online photo tagging then the mobile trend and finally buying Instagram.
Most people I know have had one acquisition or successful company and are rich.
Part of the benefit with being right several times in a row is you have more leverage each time you are right. When you start a 2nd or 3rd company, you give away less equity and have much better terms. You are able to recruit better cofounders and employees.