"People who don't look any deeper than the Gini coefficient look back on the world of 1982 as the good old days, because those who got rich then didn't get as rich. But if you dig into how they got rich, the old days don't look so good. In 1982, 84% of the richest 100 people got rich by inheritance, extracting natural resources, or doing real estate deals. Is that really better than a world in which the richest people get rich by starting tech companies?"<p>this is a really stupid point, even for paul grahm. no one looks back at 1982 as the good old days, and the gini coefficient can be low without enriching oil barrons, and to see this is true, remind yourself that other countries exist.