The Production Material Fallacy: Why You're Teaching Your Kids to Be Poor

TL;DR: Schools teach you how to look rich. They don't teach you how to become rich. The difference is production material — ownership, leverage, and the ability to generate value under constraints. Hideyoshi started as a shoe-warmer and became ruler of Japan. His son was a "properly educated" scholar who lost everything. The lesson isn't about education. It's about what education actually builds.

James here, CEO of Mercury Technology Solutions. Hong Kong — July 2026

A reader asked me a question that I've been chewing on for weeks.

They spent millions on their child's education. International school. Top university abroad. The whole production. The kid graduated, couldn't find a "decent" job, and is now delivering food on a scooter.

The parent's question: "What did I do wrong?"

My answer: You taught your kid to be decorative. Not productive.

The Two Curriculums

Here's what nobody tells parents: There are two completely different educations happening in parallel, and only one of them creates wealth.

Curriculum A: The Decoration Protocol

• Table manners

• Wine tasting

• Proper email sign-offs

• "Networking" at cocktail parties

• The ability to discuss literature at dinner

• Credentials that signal status

Curriculum B: The Production Material Protocol

• How to identify arbitrage opportunities

• How to build something people want

• How to negotiate when you have no leverage

• How to survive when the rules change

• How to turn constraints into advantages

• How to own the means of production, not just rent your time

Schools — even expensive ones — teach Curriculum A. They teach you how to look like you belong in the room.

They don't teach you how to buy the building.

The Hideyoshi Test

Let me tell you a story that illustrates this perfectly.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the three unifiers of Japan, started as a peasant. No surname. No family connections. His father died early, his mother remarried, and he was sent away because there wasn't enough food.

He ended up as a servant in the household of Oda Nobunaga, one of the most powerful warlords in Japan. His job? Warming Nobunaga's sandals by holding them against his chest in winter so they'd be comfortable when his master stepped into them.

That's not a metaphor. That's literally where he started.

From there, he rose through sheer competence — military, economic, diplomatic, political. He built alliances, won battles, and eventually became the most powerful man in Japan. The emperor gave him the surname "Toyotomi." He built a tea room covered in gold leaf. He could be as "proper" as anyone when he needed to be.

But here's the key: He didn't become powerful because he learned to be proper. He learned to be proper because he became powerful.

The propriety came after. The production material came first.

Now look at his son, Hideyori. Raised in a castle. Educated by the best scholars. A genuine intellectual — "properly" educated in every sense. When the time came to lead, when his general Sanada Yukimura asked him to appear on the battlefield to rally the troops, Hideyori couldn't do it. Too many concerns about protocol. About safety. About what was "appropriate."

His father had built an empire by warming shoes and risking everything. His son lost that empire because he'd been taught to worry about the wrong things.

The Oda Nobunaga Parallel

Hideyoshi's boss, Oda Nobunaga, makes the same point from a different angle.

Nobunaga was born a minor lord's son, but his father died young. His mother favored his younger brother. His own wife was a spy from an enemy clan. His brother-in-law betrayed him. His most trusted general, Akechi Mitsuhide, forced him to commit seppuku in a burning temple.

Nobunaga's life was a continuous chain of betrayals, constraints, and impossible situations. He wasn't educated in a castle. He was educated in survival.

And then there's Tokugawa Ieyasu — the third unifier. Spent his childhood as a hostage, swapped between enemy clans. Served Nobunaga for decades as a subordinate, always sent into the most dangerous positions. Had his own wife and eldest son executed on Nobunaga's orders. Waited, served, survived.

When Nobunaga died, Ieyasu served Hideyoshi. When Hideyoshi died, Ieyasu finally made his move. Took him seventy years.

None of these men learned their craft in school.

They learned it in the field, under pressure, with real consequences. They learned to identify production material — land, alliances, loyalty, strategic position — and to acquire it when everyone else was focused on looking important.

The Bitcoin ETF Problem

Someone asked me recently about the Bitcoin ETF approval. They wanted analysis. Price targets. Trading strategies.

They missed the point entirely.

Bitcoin's original architecture was about decentralized ownership. No intermediaries. No gatekeepers. You hold the keys, you hold the asset. That's production material — direct ownership without permission.

An ETF is the opposite. It's a promise of ownership, wrapped in regulatory compliance, held by a custodian, tradable only during market hours. You've converted a censorship-resistant asset into a decorative financial product.

The people who wanted the ETF weren't trying to own Bitcoin. They were trying to look like they owned Bitcoin.

This is the same pattern. Curriculum A thinking applied to Curriculum B material. It doesn't work.

What Production Material Actually Means

Let's get specific. What am I actually talking about when I say "production material"?

I'm talking about:

Ownership vs. Renting

• A salary is renting your time. Equity is owning the output.

• A degree is renting credibility. A track record is owning credibility.

• A job title is renting status. A customer base is owning status.

Leverage vs. Effort

• One person with a machine can outproduce fifty without.

• One person with code can serve millions while they sleep.

• One person with capital can absorb opportunities others can't afford to take.

Optionality vs. Specialization

• The specialist is valuable until the market shifts. Then they're stranded.

• The generalist who understands systems can pivot. They have production material that transfers.

Hideyoshi didn't rise because he was the best sandal-warmer. He rose because he understood that warming sandals was a temporary position, and he used the visibility to demonstrate competence in everything else.

The Parent's Dilemma

Back to the reader's question.

They spent millions on education because they wanted their child to have a "decent life." They didn't want their kid delivering food in the rain.

I get it. I'm a parent too.

But here's the brutal truth: You can't buy production material. You can only buy the appearance of it.

That international education? It taught your kid to navigate a dinner party. It didn't teach them to navigate a market downturn.

That prestigious degree? It taught your kid to write papers that please professors. It didn't teach them to build products that please customers.

That "proper" upbringing? It taught your kid to avoid embarrassment. It didn't teach them to embrace necessary risk.

The parent bought Curriculum A and assumed it included Curriculum B. It doesn't. They're sold separately, and Curriculum B isn't available at any school.

The Cheng Xin Problem

There's a character in Liu Cixin's Three-Body Problem named Cheng Xin. She's genuinely kind. Genuinely moral. Genuinely educated. When humanity faces an existential threat, she's chosen as a leader because she represents everything "proper" and "decent."

She fails catastrophically. Not because she's stupid. Because she was trained in Curriculum A — how to be good — and never learned Curriculum B — how to survive when goodness isn't enough.

The analogy isn't perfect. But the point stands: When the constraints change, decoration doesn't help. Only production material does.

What to Actually Teach

I'm not saying education is worthless. I'm saying it's incomplete.

If you're a parent, or if you're young and building your own curriculum, here's what to actually focus on:

1. Learn to sell before you learn to manage.

Hideyoshi's first visible skill wasn't strategy. It was making himself useful to someone powerful. He sold his reliability first. Everything else followed.

2. Build something before you credential yourself.

A degree proves you can complete a program. A product proves you can create value. One signals. The other delivers. Build first, credential later if needed.

3. Get comfortable with productive discomfort.

The reason most people stay in Curriculum A is that it's comfortable. You know the rules. You know what success looks like. Curriculum B is ambiguous. You might fail publicly. You might look stupid. That's the price of production material.

4. Understand that ownership is a skill.

Most people think ownership is something you buy. It's not. It's something you build. You learn to identify undervalued assets. You learn to negotiate. You learn to manage risk. These are skills, and they're not taught in school.

The Final Reframe

The reader's final question was: "Why can't a million RMB buy a decent life?"

My answer: It can. But you spent it on the wrong curriculum.

A million RMB spent on production material — a small business, a skill that creates leverage, a network of people who actually build things — that buys a decent life. Maybe not immediately. But compound it over a decade and it pays for itself many times over.

A million RMB spent on decoration — credentials, appearances, the right connections at the wrong parties — that buys a lifestyle. It doesn't buy resilience. It doesn't buy optionality. It doesn't buy the ability to survive when the rules change.

Hideyoshi's son had the gold tea room. He didn't have the army. When Ieyasu came knocking, the tea room didn't matter.

Stop teaching your kids to look like winners. Start teaching them to build the means of production.

Everything else is just a gold-plated tea room in a burning castle.

Mercury Technology Solutions: Accelerate Digitality.