Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates. Behind Every Self-Made Billionaire is a Father with Money

In gates' case it was a father with enough money he could attend one of the few schools that he could have access to a computer and a program to learn IT. While ALSO having an investment banker uncle who was willing to invest millions into his company early on.

Also didn't his mother help get him the contract to provide ms dos for IBM? And didn't he buy MS-DOS using dad's money?
- Yes his mother was on the board of United Way where she was friend's with a board member at IBM.

“I built this company by myself, from the ground up, my own blood sweat and tears, no help from anyone, and a $20 million dollar gift from my daddy”

Donald Trump's famous "very small loan" he got from his father...
If only any of them even got a million.
I mean $200000 vs $20000000, not a big difference.
- How much did you get from your dad? I know my dad has nothing to give me, mainly because of those guys that were able to get a hand out pulling the ladder up behind them.
  In this country even being sent to college is a privilege, you are either gifted it from your parents or you are an indentured servant for your student loans/tuition. A handout from your parents is a handout from your parents, no matter the amount.
  It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone needs help every now and then. Just don’t label yourself “selfmade” when you are not.
- 200k in 1975 is worth about 1.2M today
- Every thread you are in, it's a guarantee you'll simp for Republicans and/or rich assholes.

I have long said that if we look at typical success stories somewhat soberly, it is always a combination of luck and privilege. Hard work and talent can be very helpful, but they are in no way a prerequisite for success.

To illustrate: Whenever someone says "taking risks must be rewarded", it is always worth pointing out that you don't get rewarded for taking risks, but for getting lucky while taking a risk. Also, you have to be in a position to take a risk in the first place (i.e. have time, resources, and the means to not starve if it goes belly up); in other words, some degree of privilege.

Yep. I have no doubt that Gates and Bezos and Zuckerberg are genuinely very smart and hard-working people, but there are a LOT of smart and hard-working people with poor parents, and you don't see a lot of billionaires in that group.
I know a lot of talented hardworking homeless people. Many of them work harder than I do and I make 6 figures. We're not in a meritocracy, we're all one misstep or accident away from being disabled and on the streets regardless of skill or work ethic.
- It's worth remembering that once you get to the street, you now live in a combat zone that will cause PTSD along with a host of other psychological issues.
  Housing first initiatives are the cheapest option we have. Once society stops creating new psychological disorders in their homeless population, then the formerly homeless can move out of survival mode, and actually address their many other problems*.
  *Provided of course that one can actually afford to thrive on a single income regardless of the job one takes.
Ideally, taking business risks should be rewarded as much as possible. That keeps an economy dynamic, flexible, and responsive to new opportunities. Otherwise you get an economy dominated by big brittle players that are content to sit back and milk cash cows. Oracle comes to mind, with its army of lawyers eager to shake down institutions that may not have quite the correct license for a server.
This is where bankruptcy for businesses is incredibly important. People should be able to start a business based on an idea, try to grow it, and not suffer personal ruin if the business fails. A good social safety net is beneficial as well to make sure that after a business folds, its former owners still have the bear necessities of life. Likewise, there needs to be a strong inheritance tax so the wealthy have their wealth significantly diluted.
None of this will make things equal between the children of the upper class and lower class, obviously. It just makes social mobility a little easier and benefits the economy as a whole.
- That is the opposite of risk. A risk is something you do with a poor chance of success, possibly with a good reward if successful. What you're describing is a guarantee. Now look at the returns on guaranteed interest certificates and the high-risk stocks. Sure, some of the high-risk stocks outperform the guaranteed certificates, but many also end up being worth nothing.
A lot of people also seem to ignore the fact that the risks are not the same for everybody.
E.g. four people get the same business opportunity. For person A, failure means they have to ask their parents to bail them out. For person B, they have to move in with their parents. For person C, they have to move their family into a tent under the bridge. And for person D, they have to ration their medication and risk dying.
Person A could probably try things out a few times without suffering too much other than embarrassment. Person B, maybe a couple times, but that's pushing it. The others have to pretty damn sure it'll pay off, and even then, the risk might be too much.

born on third base

Was just complaining about this to my therapist. Boomers, in general, were born on third base. Raging economy, low-priced homes, cheap college, think they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. "Kids today…" Fuck you. Your situation only existed because Europe was destroyed by war and America was untouched.
I don't know.

On a related note, there are also studies showing that luck as opposed to skill is the dominant factor in success. A person who has average skills but enjoys having good a good start in life, who has access to good connections, education, and so on, will have a far better chance of becoming successful than an exceptional person who doesn't get these benefits.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-role-of-luck-in-life-success-is-far-greater-than-we-realized/

I've recently experienced this myself and it's insane. I grew up in what appears (at least to me) to be an average middle class life. I lived at home during college and commuted to my local community college, then state school to get my 4 year degree in CS
I grinded my ass off during college to get a good internship which led me to getting a $220k a year job at AWS with 0 connections. That one position was my lucky break that sent me into a world of connections I couldn't even fathom.
As a result of that job I moved to the bay area and made a bunch of friends both in and out of my field. Through that I've met VCs, mentors, recruiters, and many others who I could get a job interview through just by asking. I've also gotten a few other people jobs through direct referral. Don't get me wrong they still have to interview and perform well, but getting short listed for interviews is incredibly powerful.
I recently got a new job, full remote, amazing benefits, and higher salary than AWS (slightly less total comp) through a friend of a friend. Despite the tech market being awful I went from asking for a referral to signing an offer in 6 weeks with only 1.5 YOE. I'm no one special either, I just knew the right people to get interviews and then studied my ass off to pass them. Most people capable of passing wouldn't even get an interview because it's a numbers game.
- It's crazy to think about isn't it. So much of your career ends up being just dumb luck of meeting the right people, and ending up in jobs where you make useful connections. And I have friends who are hands down smarter than I am, who ended up with crappier jobs because their dumb luck took a slightly different turn. I've come to realize that this whole notion of meritocracy under capitalism is pure nonsense. You do have to put in work into your career, but getting the right opportunity is what really matters.
  There are plenty of people who are smart and ambitious, but only a few ever end making it. And then it's easy to look back and to start attributing your success to having worked hard, and being smart, and so on. The reality is that you just won the lottery.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops".

When I started Reynholm Industries, I had just two things in my possession: a dream and six million pounds. Today I have a business empire the like of which the world has never seen the like of which. I hope it doesn't sound arrogant when I say that I am the greatest man in the world!

For the uninitiated - IT Crowd
Yes Security? Everyone on floor 5 is fired.
GET A BIKE

"If you don't want to be poor, why weren't you just born into a rich family? I have no respect for your bad choices pre life!"

"Because you are poor you are unworthy*. Because you are unworthy you don't deserve support."
( * replace by favorite slur)
And because they don't get any support, people remain poor, thereby closing the circular reasoning.

Is there any doubt about that? This is no news, even for people with a big house, cars …

a father with money

uhh, it's HER TURN (to give birth to a failson who fails perpetually upward)

You have the same income image for both links.

The median cost for a one bedroom apartment in the US is NOT $5,000 a month. First result on my search has $3190 for New York, but most of the listed cities are around $1,500 a month which is $18,000 a year.

sigh story is so bloated

tl;dr anyone?

TLDR; ALL billionaires are only billionaires because their dad's made them so. Here is a list of 3 billionaires to prove it. One of them is adopted but it still counts.
Money follows money.
Billionaires bad.

Steve Jobs adoptive father was a machinist and a car salesman without a college degree.

Steve Jobs wasn't a billionaire.
- I don't know how true this is but according to forbes his networth at 2011 was valued at 7b

Lololol these guys are all from upper middle class. And on the low side of that. Y'all just want to be pissed.

Non-trolls will note this person's comment history and if you notice, you'll see them propping up rich Republicans all over lemmy. It's interesting that they stay here given that everyone downvotes them to hell and just generally disagrees with everything they believe, apparently.
- It's a comment that begins with "lol". It signifies the comment is guaranteed to be misinformation and/or trolling. No need to look at their history.
- Whatever you need to tell yourself 🤷‍♂️
Upper middle class middle class with families and connections who had spare money to invest and just far enough along that they had the kids were raised with the drive to gather even more wealth. If they had been more wealthy they wouldn't have the drive, if they were less well off then they wouldn't have the advantages to make that drive happen.
"With money" doesn't mean all the money. It means plenty of money. Gates loves to tell the story about how he started his company in his father's garage. That was a three car garage because they could afford a large house with a lot of extra space Bill could use for free while starting his business.
The parents could afford to send them to prestigious schools where they made connections.
The parents had money. Recognizing this is not jealousy, it is a reason to acknowledge that massive wealth does not come from effort alone.
- you guys have skewed views of middle class. What do you consider upper class?
- So upper middle class. And read the room/thread. The entire community hates these guys.
Mmmmmmm tasty tasty boot