Chances are you don't get to be a (self-made) billionaire without throwing away $5k here and there.

If you're spending your time saving easily recoverable $5ks, you might get to be a millionnaire but you will never get to be a billionaire: it's totally irrelevant on that scale.

Equivalent statement: You don't get to buy a house without picking pound coins up off the street.

> Chances are you didn't get to be a billionaire by throwing away $5k if it's easily recoverable.

Even better chances are you probably did a basic cost analysis and didn't just go based on hunches.

And best chance yet, you probably inherited the billions.

Or you inherited it? Or your a middle eastern minor prince, or your a Russian who was in the first place at the right time and got a good deal ( ;-) ) on some Soviet privitaisation.

Not all billionaires pulled themselves up by their bootstraps