Going to take this opportunity to remind people that Silicon Valley paved the way for this narrative by presenting an entire class of people with very similar backgrounds as totally 'self made' despite the fact it's pretty clear they got where they got because of their parents. https://twitter.com/Forbes/status/1102901931905814535

Almost every silicon valley creator comes from the exact same background. Usually upper middle class parents with at least one parent having an advanced degree, usually in math/coding/electrical engineering, or similar field. They got big because they literally had no competition

Larry Page, one of the founders of Google and CEO of alphabet: Father was a professor of computer science in the 70's, mother taught coding. Both upper middle class.

Sergey Brin, the other co-founder of Google: Soviet Ex-pat family - father a professor of mathematics and his mother was an aeronautics engineer. Again, upper middle class families with connections and teaching decades before the personal computer was no longer a toy for the rich

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers: Father was an electrical engineer who worked on computer systems for Lockheed Martin, notably he liked to show his sons dorky friend Steve these same systems.

Steve Jobs, the friend: The most humble of the bunch background-wise, Jobs still came from a nice household and most notably the neighborhood they lived in was brimming with electrical and computational engineers back before the field had really been developed.

Elon Musk: Father owned an emerald mine and tons of land in south africa. He was also an electromechanical engineer in addition to being wildly rich. Musk has never announced who the angel investors were of his first company he made with his brother, but I have a guess.

Travis Kalanick, creator of Uber: Upper middle class family that grew up just outside of LA with his father being a civil engineer with a graduate degree and his mother did retail marketing.

William von Meister, creator of AOL: His mother was literally a Countess.

Bill Gates: Born William Henry Gates III, Bill came from some real ass money. He chose a prep school to go to because they were one of the first with onsite computers at the ripe year of 1968. Bill Gates made his first program 30 years before half the country had a computer.

This chart if it could go back is staggering. In 1977, less than 50,000 computers shipped out world wide. The story of silicon valley is not of uber-mensches who defied the odds, but rather a very specific set of circumstances all revolving around access to a tool.

It's not that these men did not work hard, I'm sure they did, but billions of people work hard. What allowed them to become what they did was a combination of access to money AND access to the most powerful tool in human history decades before most kids would even see it.

They had parents who were experts in a field that just barely had started or in secondary related fields, the literal industry specific tools they needed in addition to that, and they had enough money that if they failed they had a cushion to soften the blow.

Everyone likes to frame their successes by how hard they worked, but the reality is we're mostly at the whims of what tools are available and who we spend the most time with. People beat the odds, but we're talking a game of percentages here, shear willpower is often not enough.

How you act when you know you have a comfortable home to go back to and parents who can wire you cash is going to be different than people who don't have those options. I'm not even talking millions here, just enough for moving expenses immediately changes how you perceive risk.

I used SV here because the mythos is that of self made men and not uber-wealthy kids with connections like banking/politics, but when you realize it's about understanding an entire field before 99% of the country is even capable of being aware it changes how you view it.

It goes from "These are men who fought against all odds to make something work through shear grit" to "These are all men from a very specific background and were literally the only people on earth who had the opportunity to succeed". They worked hard, but no one else had a chance

This is why our goal should be to provide tools, access, AND above all else material conditions that ensure that people actually can take risks and know they won't end up living under a bridge in a shitty milsurp tent.

If every person in America knew they could fall back on a housing program, free medical care, and cash regardless of whether their personal project failed, this country would see a LOT more people creating cooler and better things.

So, uhhhhh, let's do that. /end