Why Most Are Still Poor and What the Wealthy Did During COVID
Level 2 - Value Investor
Welcome Avatar! One of the major themes around here is related to the W-2. It essentially died as a career path post COVID. Over the past 5 years (alone) the S&P has practically doubled which means that a W-2 needs to pay up *more* than 100% to keep pace (remember your tax rate goes up the more you make, a 10% increase in W-2 is actually less than 10% in net income terms)
S&P up about 95%, Doesn’t include dividends. How many people saw a 2x in net income? Not many.
What to do about it? Simple. Play a different game.
Intelligent people are not hard working, they simply stack the odds in their favor. There is no way to guarantee success, however, you can play the probabilities. That is exactly what intelligence and rich people do.
The next round just started. And the top 1% already know how to operate. To explain this we’ll use 2020/2021 as an example.
COVID Was A Generational Opportuntiy
While the masses were busy stocking up on hand sanitizer, toilet paper and watching Netflix all day, the rich were accumulating risk assets. They knew that $10,000,000,000,000 had to flow through the financial system.
What Rich People Did:
People took advantage of low interest rates. Either the 3% mortgages or the 0% debt for businesses.
They then moved to low tax states, or tax havens (Singapore, Puerto Rico etc.)
They continued to focus on building an asset (E-com, SaaS, etc.). Since they knew that valuations would expand
If they saw any *asset* with easy flip potential, they bought it
Spent all their money increasing LTV of customer and expanding market share
What Most People Did
Hoarded cash waiting for the market to crash despite extreme amounts of money printing. CNBC even had people saying to buy 2% bonds
Believed the Fed would react to the stock market and stop printing
Believed all the W-2 lies about this being temporary. In the back rooms the CEOs/CFOs all realized a ton of people were redundant
Missed all the asymmetry in tech stocks and crypto. Buying boring utilities stocks instead
Argued about politics despite both parties saying we need to raise the debt ceiling
Thought the 401K was good enough for retirement
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”
While we’re fine with people making mistakes. It’s the only way to learn. The saying above is true.
Unless you believe politicians, you now know that they will resort to printing money 99/100 times. When you have both the left and the right saying “raise the debt ceiling” the likely outcome is clear as day.
What the Wealthy Are Doing in 2025 and Beyond
When we say wealthy, we mean people with real assets. Making top 1% income is *not* rich. Top 1% wealth starts at ~$11,000,000. This means with a 5% return, they can make top 1% “income” by doing nothing at all.
Levels to this.
Rules of the Wealthy
You Won’t Get Rich Trading Time for Money: A job is where you trade your time for an hourly wage. A Career is where you’re based on performance. A Business is where you make money in your sleep.
The future of salaries? Likely capped in the $250,000 range or so. No performance upside unless in Sales or another clear revenue generating role.
If your income stops when you stop working, you have no inertia.
Leveraging AI: The majority are in panic mode over AI. Any business owner is beyond thrilled. “Overhead walks on Two Legs”. Similar to the invention of the computer and the internet, the answer is always the same. Learn to use it like a champion. This post, is a clear example of how to use it to not only come up with a business idea but execute on the ads/marketing etc. Majority are simply cowards. Never betting on themselves (source)
Marketing Has Replaced Software Engineering: This was a common phrase we wrote all of 2021. Marketing is the new software engineering. Now people have it figured out. If AI can replace all the basic functions (back office) all of your energy just goes towards gathering attention/eyeballs. That’s the entire end-game now. Distribution, catchy ads, correct targeting. The rest becomes noise as $1 in ad spend that comes back with more than $1 in net income = money making machine.
How They are Doing This Today?
If you’re new, you probably make a lot mistakes. Wasting valuable time on the exact perfect domain name. Wasting time on some logo that can be made with AI instead. Burning hours on font sizes and colors that could once again be ripped and “good enough”
Build an Offer, Not a Brand
If you’re new it’s pretty simple: 1) you have to create a clear offer. What pain point are you solving. Pain always sells better than pleasure. This is why practically all commercials are related to someone suffering and some product coming in to save the day. Even the disgusting cologne AXE brand did this, with some magic spray that smelled horrific to attract women.
Find the price point that works in the indsutry, $300 offer, $500 offer, $1,000 offer etc. Go rip ads that are converting today in the same industry. Get to selling. You’re trying to make a sales funnel. If you’re profitable on some spray and pray attempt, you have a business for sure.
Focus on LTV
Majority of people want to make fast money. They want to go “viral” and get rich over night. This actually doesn’t work particularly well. It ends up creating a small window to make money that dies. Make no mistake if you go viral organically, you press all the ads hard. However, it shouldn’t be a strategy
Instead you want to figure out “how do i maximize the LTV of the customer”. In an ideal world your product is recurring and works incredibly well. Selling a weight loss drink is significantly better than selling a piece of furniture. One is consistent in helping keep lbs off the body. The other is sold once every 5-10 years or so.
LTV is more important than the first time sale. This is why many of the best businesses in the world have a loss leader. Make near no money on a trial, make all of it on the back-end from an upselll.
Stop the Lifestyle Creep
Every 10-20 years there is a massive technological change. First it was computers, then it was the internet, now it is crypto and AI. Guess what that means? Lots of new jobs will be created and lots of new jobs will be lost.
There is a pretty easy way to avoid lifestyle creep. If you make more money, say $50,000 more this year, then you must increase your savings rate. For example if you saved 10% of your income last year, you will now save at least 12% of it. This forces you to live below your means and acquire assets: crypto, stocks, luxury real estate etc.
Notice. It doesn’t say keep spending flat. Life is short. You can spend more as you make more. Just don’t get into the habit of having a declining or flat “reinvestment rate” which is the modern day “savings rate”.
No One Coming to Save You
If you’ve made some mistakes along the way, that’s pretty normal. We were naive enough to believe “work hard and you’ll be promoted” back when we had to work a W-2 as well. Looking back it was hysterical to believe that is true. And. We don’t fault a 21 year old for believing this fairy tale
In short, most are simply uneducated in the right things. They are playing the wrong game with the wrong strategy.
It’s really up to you to decide. When you’re in middle age do you want to be the person everyone wants to contact “Can I Pick Your Brain” or do you want to be the guy who is bitter hip checking people at the YMCA championship soccer tournament. Up to you.
The old American Dream is dead: It has been like this for a while. It will be difficult/impossible to work a single W-2 with a stay at home mom + 2 kids and white picket fence. The new reality is that you’ll be buying that house, however, you’ll be working online in some sort of internet based business (E-com, SaaS etc.).
Instead of hiring a bunch of people in Bangladesh, you’ll be hiring AI software to do the vast majority of the work. We went from hiring people to 1099/free lance to straight up “no need for anyone except AI/software unless a sales person”
If we were to leave you with anything in 2025 niche business world? The winners of the next decade are not scared of AI. They are not scared of crypto. They are not scared of new technology. They absolutely love all of it.
They are using it to scale their business. They are using it to get better returns. They are using it to survive and thrive.
Darwin was right and will always be right. It isn’t the strongest that survives, it is the most adaptable.
If you want proof that no politician is going to come along and save you? Just look at the latest schedule for money printing. Another $1 Trillion in borrowing to come in Q3.
Chaos is Another Word for Opportunity
We say this every single time there is a meltdown. When people were calling for WW3 that was an opportunity. When people were calling for the greatest recession of all time during COVID, that was yet another opportunity.
All of the changes in tech? Yet another opportunity.
As usual, you can decide what is best for your future.
Just know that the W-2 is not going to save you. For every early employee at FAANNG there are millions of people collecting W-2s in other industries.
Play the probabilities.
Or. Go to sleep at night always asking “what if i went all in for a few years”
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce.
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