I don't know what the bias is called but there is this belief that many successful people have or try to bestow that they "did it all themselves" and "you can too".

And in generally many people actually believe this. That is the "self made man" story. Many people believe that the starting point doesn't matter. That outside help doesn't matter. That ash to riches is possible and happens often but the reality is this exceedingly not true at all.

> Survivorship bias is "Zuck did X, Y and Z, if I do the same then I'll be a multi-billionaire too!"

> There's no survivorship bias in going to med school, becoming a specialist and then earning 400k/yr.

And if you ask a great majority of these people they will actually believe that hard work was a majority of their success but I firmly believe it is more analogous to as they say in real estate "location location location". Right parents , timing and money probably made the mass difference.

Consequently the survivorship bias is even worse because everyones success story is going to have to be fairly different because the vast majority of us come from a wide array of backgrounds and starting points.