What does it take to make money?

How difficult is it to make money? Everyone knows it’s not easy, otherwise everyone would have been rich. I believe that hard work has no substitute and it takes a lot of efforts to reach certain heights. People toil day and night, spending their whole lives to make money. And still some don’t make enough. I have seen different types of people who have achieved great feat and will talk about them.

There are two people I admire the most, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Being a software developer (Microsoft technologies) I will talk about Bill Gates. I first heard about Gates when he became the richest man on the planet. I didn’t know anything about Microsoft by then, year 1995. Gates was a genius from the beginning and he got into computers at the early age of 14 (school kid) and he started his career at around 17. He built the Microsoft empire and as of today his net worth is US $91 billion. He has been in the industry for around 50 years (Wikipedia). Microsoft is a great company and the list of products they have built is simply astonishing. They have software as well as hardware products which are being used worldwide. I think he simply deserves to be the richest person on the planet.

I had this notion that being rich means you have to start very young and create something as significant as Microsoft. I thought I had lost my chance.

Some years back, in 2004, Facebook was launched and Mark Zuckerberg became one of the richest person. He became a billionaire in his twenties. His net worth is US $72 billion and he is just 33. What does Facebook have? Just a website? Unlike Microsoft they neither have a huge range of software products nor are they into hardware. He built a simple site in his dormitory room which now has 2.2 billion active users (wiki). Now Facebook makes money from variety of products but still the main revenue is from facebook.com.
Mark has been active in this industry for much less time as compared to Gates, just 15 years, and has a single website as opposed to the Microsoft empire and still he stands next to Bill Gates. I am surprised seeing how Facebook makes so much revenue. Mark Zuckerberg is phenomenal for sure.

There is a new craze about Bitcoin recently and one man named Changpeng Zhao CZ is a famous personality in the Crypto world. He is the CEO of Binance, an exchange for crypto currencies. I am sure many of you reading this article would never have heard of him. He is just 41 and had heard about Bitcoin first in 2013. And now he is a billionaire. There is a good article about him on Forbes From Zero To Crypto Billionaire In Under A Year: Meet The Founder Of Binance

He started his career in Crypto Currencies much late as compared to Gates and Mark and quickly became a billionaire. And yes, you can say Binance is just a site/app to exchange cryptos. I would say Facebook looks like an empire in front of Binance. The total number of users is a fraction of what Facebook or Microsoft has. A simple app like Binance can make so much money in such less time and with such less audience. That’s truly extraordinary.

I think the above 3 people belong to three different categories and there are many such in each category.

I recently entered the crypto space and I am simply astonished about one man. Everyone in the Crypto space knows him, but no one knows who he really is or ever if he really exists.
Satoshi Nakamoto is his name. The creator of the Bitcoin. Its still unknown if Satoshi is a real person or a group. He created Bitcoin in 2009 and he left in 2010. Bitcoin was then $0.08 and reached $1 in 2011. The price of 1 Bitcoin was at its highest in Dec 2017 around $20K. Satoshi owns 1 million Bitcoin and they are untouched since long in his wallet. At the peak net worth of Satoshi was around US $20 billion which makes him one of richest person in Crypto space. As compared to Gates or Mark, Satoshi does not have his own company, neither he has a site or an App, neither he is active in his industry since long. He just built a protocol, a piece of software which can be also called as POC. Yes, he just wanted to prove it works, and then he left. If Bitcoin was to really reach $1 Million as many pundits are predicting, I think I will need a super computer to calculate his net worth. Probably it would be the sum of first 100 richest person on the planet. The amount of money that Gates, Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and all other billionaires have and he will still have a hell lot to spare. All this by just building a (simple) protocol.

So my question is What does it take to make money? Literally?

An empire like Microsoft or a tiny software?

Now I don't think I have already lost my chance. Things can click anytime. All you need to do is "Not stop, trust yourself and keep chasing your dreams".