The problem with this is your definition of "work".Anyone measuring their wages in the millions per day isn’t “working” for the money in the sense I was using the term, no matter how hard they are working.You appear to be assuming billionaires don't work. That may be true for a few, but Gates, Buffett and Musk all worked their asses off.Translation: It’s good to be a billionaire.
- What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
(Of course it takes a LOT of people working without receiving to create even one billionaire.)
Fundamentally, work can be divided into two categories.
1) Direct production. Obviously, nobody in such a field can produce millions in value in a day.
2) Indirect production. You're not producing a distinct product, but something which scales at minimal cost.
A) Pretty much the entire entertainment industry. You put a lot of effort into an X, the marginal cost of providing that X to another is near zero. Fundamentally, you're competing for a share of the entertainment pie. What you make is determined by how desirable your product is, not by the effort you put into it.
B) Directing processes. Income here is derived from maintaining/improving how things work. A small slice of an improvement for a lot of people adds up to a lot. Upwards of 90% of my career has been such--they sell nothing from my work, they just get more output for the same amount of input. Value comes from how much materials and labor are saved elsewhere.
We see quite wealthy people from group 2A. We see extremely wealthy people from group 2B.