That's what I would call first-order wealth (i.e. basic goods or services). It's the equivalent of the fish you give (or perhaps sell) that allows someone to eat for a day. Getting rich that way is a matter of knowing how much to charge and how much to spend so that you accumulate a surplus.
The problem with this kind of "wealth" is that it doesn't have much of a network effect.
I admire second-order wealth creators more. This kind of wealth is the knowledge you give (or sell) when you teach someone to fish. This creates the possibility of more first-order wealth without significantly diminishing the seller's wealth (unless the value of the knowledge itself is directly related to its scarcity).
The guy in the original article is clearly a first-order rich guy. While I applaud him for helping worthy causes, I'd admire him more if he were a creator of second-order wealth, perhaps by starting a YC-like company which would help start new companies in that industry.
Since money is fungible, the distinction you suggest is not meaningful. The money that a person saves by buying less expensive goods from a "first-order" business might very well be spent on training or other self-improvement.
If a "first-order" business is better at its business than it would be at a "second-order" business, then, due to comparative advantage, everyone will be better off with the "first-order" business saving people money that they can spend on "second-order" businesses, your admiration for the latter notwithstanding.
While Walmart is basically a ruthlessly efficient first-order company, I'd say eBay is more of a second-order company since it sells a sales-enhancing service and Amazon is somewhere in between since it does both.
The problem with this kind of "wealth" is that it doesn't have much of a network effect.
I admire second-order wealth creators more. This kind of wealth is the knowledge you give (or sell) when you teach someone to fish. This creates the possibility of more first-order wealth without significantly diminishing the seller's wealth (unless the value of the knowledge itself is directly related to its scarcity).
The guy in the original article is clearly a first-order rich guy. While I applaud him for helping worthy causes, I'd admire him more if he were a creator of second-order wealth, perhaps by starting a YC-like company which would help start new companies in that industry.