The Rational Reminder Podcast · Thursday, September 24, 2026
Owen Zidar points out that the path to becoming a millionaire is often through "mundane" or "dirty jobs" and takes decades, contrasting with the fast-money narrative often associated with Silicon Valley. These businesses are not always visible, unlike publicly traded companies.
“They're pretty mundane businesses, but when you have the opportunity like us to work with the Treasury, it's the full map of wealth in America. It's just very different because people don't answer surveys unless you have investigative journalists or a celebrity following.”
“And it's some of those dirty jobs that you talked about that turns out to be what you see in the data.”
“The Silicon Valley kind of move fast and break things, make some app and get rich instantly fast is just not the model.”