I made that original comment. Thanks for doing the analysis I was too lazy to do! Your analysis jives with the broader point I was trying to make - in the past 15 years, finance has been the surest path to riches in America. It is not just at the level of the Forbes 400. During the real estate bubble, newly minted mortgage brokers (often coming from other fields such as car sales, they found selling debt far more lucrative) were taking home $0.5 million - and not just a few of them. I have had acquaintances in Goldman, at fairly low level in the org chart, who have been taking home similar sums in bonuses every year. I know Unix systems administrators in Wall Street who take home ~$300K/year - and these guys are generally very low in the Wall Street totem pole.
It has been the age of the financier for a while now. No, this is not capitalism at work; it is Federal Reserve policy. It allowed specially privileged entities to lever up (30x leverage in case of investment banks like Goldman or Morgan Stanley, 10x in case of hedge funds), allow them to speculate with easy money, and have them pay out huge bonuses in case of investment banks or huge carried profit in case of hedgies ... and finally bail them out when their leverage blew up on them, only to have them start speculating all over again.
The thing is, however, that the times are different now. Look at a chart of the US 10 year note from the 60's to the present. It peaked in 1981.
I parse that history as -- the world was coming off of a golden era in productivity, wealth and economic stability. It would make sense for people from B school to make a lot of money if they started getting their chops on Wall Street, etc.
But now it's different. I think that the 10 year note has begun its steady rise again, finally (biggest acceleration since the late 60's and early 80's). But in this economic climate, nimbler business arrangements surely are more viable and better training for future business leaders.
It's just basic math -- in a 4% environment, things like SpaceX and other lighter economic models will be successful. In a 15% environment, financing itself is more useful, and, with synergy and everything, on average produces more massive individual personal wealth.
The constraints that faced those currently on the Fortune 400 list (which is really some sort of integral of the past 30 years -- as these are people at the peak of their careers) are different from those who will be on the Fortune 400 list in 2030.
(N.B. I made all this s* up having looked at an all-time 10 year note chart earlier tonight. But it's an idea.)
ETA: Although it's a bit of a project. I think it would be interesting to compile the 100 wealthiest people in the world over the past 100 years. I have a feeling that certain periods in time would've produced clusters of financiers (JP Morgans, etc.), whereas other times would produce clusters of startup founders. Would be interesting to compare them to different economic indices, etc. Then the thing would be to determine if our own present economic climate resembles others periods -- and what that means to the different types of fields you should, on average, go into to maximize personal wealth (if that's something that you're into). Or at least be aware of it.
The thing is, once you have $15M I'm sure that financial manipulations are enormously popular.
I don't think about getting into fortune 400. I think about going from 5 figures in the bank to 8, for which I feel entrepreneurship is the best choice.
of course I've been an obsessive programmer since I was 13 (16 years now, eek) so it is a more natural path
Quibble, but wasn't it the SEC that allowed the investment banks to leverage up 30x?
Not to mention that all of them are now dead, bought out by bank banks or in the process of becoming so (well, that's just the big names, but as I understand it the smaller fish are very small).
Yur second point is dead on - these companies aren't the "champions of capitalism" some think they are. They are benefactors of government policy, like the fractional reserve system, Federal Reserve policy, etc.
It has been the age of the financier for a while now. No, this is not capitalism at work; it is Federal Reserve policy. It allowed specially privileged entities to lever up (30x leverage in case of investment banks like Goldman or Morgan Stanley, 10x in case of hedge funds), allow them to speculate with easy money, and have them pay out huge bonuses in case of investment banks or huge carried profit in case of hedgies ... and finally bail them out when their leverage blew up on them, only to have them start speculating all over again.