I think this misses a big mentality difference between the US and most other developed countries.
In the US, people like to exaggerate and boast. Everything is the best, biggest, etc.
In the US, "new is always better". Doesn't matter if the new is just the old with an app (coworking, food delivery, taxi, hotels), or just a worse iteration of an already existing thing (all the crappy companies trying to reinvent worse trains with "pods") it's celebrated for being new and innovative. Reminder that bloody Juicero got millions of dollars of investment.
In the US, there's a big celebrity culture. People genuinely worship celebrities, including successful business people (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk to name two popular examples). There's always the assumption that they were successful because they were smart and hard working (which is of course, at best, half the story).
None of those exist to such an extent in other developed countries. Hell, in France being a billionaire is seen as a negative thing in many social circles. Even entirely self-made billionaires such as Xavier Niel who dropped out of middle/high school to start a business over Minitel (a French precursor to the Internet) that have had a very positive impact on French society (by one, creating a telecom that brought extremely affordable internet and mobile phone plans to the general public, and two, creating a free and brilliant tech school, 42) aren't really seen as "good" or considered a celebrity worthy of respect/veneration.
Also, in many other developed countries people "work to live" instead of "live to work". Getting a stable good paying job that will get you plenty of time off to do things you genuinely enjoy, be they pottery, gardening, travelling, lego, rock climbing or whatever, is considered a good deal for many. Why waste your early years when you have the most energy hustling so that maybe you can make it big? People's ambitions usually revolve around personal things such as bucket lists of travel destinations, family, hobbies, etc., and often but not always, being successful at work, but to the extent of being able to calmly afford all the aforementioned and mostly enjoy/tolerate it, not necessarily becoming billionaire businesspeople.
> Also, in many other developed countries people "work to live" instead of "live to work". Getting a stable good paying job that will get you plenty of time off to do things you genuinely enjoy, be they pottery, gardening, travelling, lego, rock climbing or whatever, is considered a good deal for many.
I wish this was more widely understood. And I agree with your whole post and wish for it to be higher.
> Hell, in France being a billionaire is seen as a negative thing in many social circles.
Well, purely socially, having a billion euros is kinda... bad? If you think about it, what do we call all other kinds of people that have a lot of 1 thing, more than they need or could possibly use within their lifetimes?
Hoarders.
It's not a positive term. It implies something being wrong in the head.
Now, an entrepreneur building a business that becomes worth billions and themselves having a new worth of a billion? Probably a different story, but as we're seeing more and more, power corrupts and most of these folks don't really stay in touch with reality 5-10+ years after they become so rich.
In the US, people like to exaggerate and boast. Everything is the best, biggest, etc.
In the US, "new is always better". Doesn't matter if the new is just the old with an app (coworking, food delivery, taxi, hotels), or just a worse iteration of an already existing thing (all the crappy companies trying to reinvent worse trains with "pods") it's celebrated for being new and innovative. Reminder that bloody Juicero got millions of dollars of investment.
In the US, there's a big celebrity culture. People genuinely worship celebrities, including successful business people (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk to name two popular examples). There's always the assumption that they were successful because they were smart and hard working (which is of course, at best, half the story).
None of those exist to such an extent in other developed countries. Hell, in France being a billionaire is seen as a negative thing in many social circles. Even entirely self-made billionaires such as Xavier Niel who dropped out of middle/high school to start a business over Minitel (a French precursor to the Internet) that have had a very positive impact on French society (by one, creating a telecom that brought extremely affordable internet and mobile phone plans to the general public, and two, creating a free and brilliant tech school, 42) aren't really seen as "good" or considered a celebrity worthy of respect/veneration.
Also, in many other developed countries people "work to live" instead of "live to work". Getting a stable good paying job that will get you plenty of time off to do things you genuinely enjoy, be they pottery, gardening, travelling, lego, rock climbing or whatever, is considered a good deal for many. Why waste your early years when you have the most energy hustling so that maybe you can make it big? People's ambitions usually revolve around personal things such as bucket lists of travel destinations, family, hobbies, etc., and often but not always, being successful at work, but to the extent of being able to calmly afford all the aforementioned and mostly enjoy/tolerate it, not necessarily becoming billionaire businesspeople.