Whatever the parent is describing, it's an extreme outlier, or a loosey-goosey definition of "carpenter."
My father came from a poor family and went to college on a scholarship, but after graduating and finding that he couldn't afford to complete graduate school, he went into carpentry. He started with basically nothing, but ended up making a decent living after years of busting his ass. Ultimately he was pulling in six figures before retirement.
I can think of two ways the parent's statement might be true-ish:
1) The "master carpenter" is some kind of artisan, doing bespoke pieces (essentially, artwork) for incredibly wealthy individuals. Perhaps they come from wealth and already had connections.
2) The carpenter is not a carpenter, but a business owner. This is eventually what my father did - he used his own labor exclusively at first, working for other people. Once his network expanded he started taking on small jobs on his own. Once that expanded he started hiring people to help. Once that expanded he was able to save enough money, and eventually he got his general contractor's license.
At some point along the line, although he retained and sometimes still utilized his own carpentry skills, a vast majority of his earnings were generated by the fact that he owned a business and employed other people to do the labor. And yet, he still made maybe 1/4 of what the parent post's acquaintance does (adjusted for inflation).
For 1), you would need to be both incredibly talented and incredibly good at marketing. For 2), you need to be good at "business" more than you need to be good at carpentry.
This isn't a straightforward path. For everybody like my father, I knew people in his orbit who never made the leap to ownership. They worked doing manual labor for other people, and the toll it took on their bodies was immediately evident. The kind of physical work that you can do in your 20s and 30s starts to grind you down quickly in your 40s or 50s. He knew plenty of peers and colleagues whose pain became unmanageable, and drug addiction was the result. Others who ended up on disability being unable to work at all.
"Rich tradesman" is a low percentage play. I suspect that the extent that it's possible to be a $500k/yr carpenter (for somebody really starting out in the trades - not somebody coming from wealth/privilege and starting off with a business or art connections), you may as well be trying to become a professional athlete.
My father came from a poor family and went to college on a scholarship, but after graduating and finding that he couldn't afford to complete graduate school, he went into carpentry. He started with basically nothing, but ended up making a decent living after years of busting his ass. Ultimately he was pulling in six figures before retirement.
I can think of two ways the parent's statement might be true-ish:
1) The "master carpenter" is some kind of artisan, doing bespoke pieces (essentially, artwork) for incredibly wealthy individuals. Perhaps they come from wealth and already had connections.
2) The carpenter is not a carpenter, but a business owner. This is eventually what my father did - he used his own labor exclusively at first, working for other people. Once his network expanded he started taking on small jobs on his own. Once that expanded he started hiring people to help. Once that expanded he was able to save enough money, and eventually he got his general contractor's license.
At some point along the line, although he retained and sometimes still utilized his own carpentry skills, a vast majority of his earnings were generated by the fact that he owned a business and employed other people to do the labor. And yet, he still made maybe 1/4 of what the parent post's acquaintance does (adjusted for inflation).
For 1), you would need to be both incredibly talented and incredibly good at marketing. For 2), you need to be good at "business" more than you need to be good at carpentry.
This isn't a straightforward path. For everybody like my father, I knew people in his orbit who never made the leap to ownership. They worked doing manual labor for other people, and the toll it took on their bodies was immediately evident. The kind of physical work that you can do in your 20s and 30s starts to grind you down quickly in your 40s or 50s. He knew plenty of peers and colleagues whose pain became unmanageable, and drug addiction was the result. Others who ended up on disability being unable to work at all.
"Rich tradesman" is a low percentage play. I suspect that the extent that it's possible to be a $500k/yr carpenter (for somebody really starting out in the trades - not somebody coming from wealth/privilege and starting off with a business or art connections), you may as well be trying to become a professional athlete.