You resent my tone. I resent your implicit dismissal that I have a point at all. That is something routinely done to people who are "the wrong kind of people," whether it is their gender, sexual orientation, social class or some other Othering category.
Calling it a hack that you are suggesting is an extremely different idea from your initial framing. I am someone who focuses a lot on what the disadvantaged individual can do for themselves in the here and now, in spite of the system being broken. I have learned to be more careful about how I speak of such things because if you aren't careful, it absolutely reads as blaming the victim and dismissing the idea that the system itself needs to change.
Your initial framing of "It's not what you know, it's who you know" is an incredibly problematic framing. It implies that you don't really need to study or make an effort or have ambition. That works for the rich kids, as this article suggests. If you are poor and trying to find a hack to get ahead, you better be smart, knowledgeable, hard working and ambitious and have a plan. Then finding the right person to connect with might open doors for you. But when a poor person hears It's not what you know, it's who you know, there is the danger that they will interpret that to mean that they just need to find a rich person to latch onto and take advantage of. It also is very disrespectful of the few who do make it that way, like their sorry ass got saved, not that they succeeded against long odds, in part due to using a social hack.
Some of your implicit assumptions seem to be that we are talking about people with entrepreneurial ambitions. Not everyone has that. Furthermore, my mom and aunt used to work dinner parties at rich folks' houses. Most folks at those parties are pretty well heeled. Most poor people at such events are serving the food and cleaning up, not hobnobbing with the rich.
I suggest you seriously rethink your dismissal of the value of meeting people online. Plenty of people make that work and it has the potential to bring down social barriers and allow poor folks to make connections and further plans in spite of not dressing right, not being able to get an invite to a cocktail party, etc. But one of the problems is that if people online learn you are poor, they turn a deaf ear to your efforts to further your entrepreunerial plans and dismis you as someone trying to hit them up for money rather than recognizing that your goal is to make money online -- just like a lot of them are currently doing.
I will also note generally that you are not the first person to dismiss out of hand the idea that me having a few thousand karma on HN should mean something. I don't know if it is classism or sexism or what, but that is an example of "the rules are differemt for some folks, and not in a good way." Because when men here have several thousand karma points, it absolutely does get cited by people as evidence of their intelligence and the value they have to offer. (Recent example : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12775170) But if I say I have inordinately high amounts of karma for a woman here, that is routinely dismissed as not meaningful in any way, shape or form.
Also, I am not "starting from homelessness." I was 46 when I ended up on the street. I am noting that as a PSA. People who are homeless routinely get treated like they were born homeless and never had a life. Their educational background and other relevant life experiences get completely dismissed. This is a significant social barrier for those who are homeless and would like to actually solve their problems.
Best. Thanks for replying.