Old Money Doesn’t Work, You Do

I have long maintained that old money doesn’t do much. It mostly sits in low interest bank accounts, in t-bills, in GICs, in savings bonds and other low return, conservative investments.

Why?

Because nothing frightens old money more than the thought of losing it.

Why?

Because many of them inherited their money, and don’t know how to repair their fortunes if anything goes wrong.

Who knows how to do that?

Entrepreneurs do.

By definition, entrepreneurs don’t have much if any money, but they do have passion, creativity, know-how and a can-do attitude.

So who creates jobs?

Old money?

Nope.

Large companies?

Nope, they behave like old money–risk averse, and only willing or able to extract every last drop of income from existing business models and technology.

Entrepreneurs, that’s who, helped by the spending power of middle class consumers.

Here’s Nick Hanauer’s take on why rich people don’t create jobs, consumers do. He’s half right.

By the way, this TED talk never made it to the TED website, reportedly because they did not like his message.

@ profbruce @ quantum_entity

postscript: I’ve also found if you want to raise money for charity, you don’t usually ask rich people, you ask those with less. Same reason as above.