Missing from the strategies for the first two (really all three): come from wealthy background.
my family moved to the states from moscow when i was 7. we spent all our money that we got from selling a crappy apt on the move itself. we lived on food stamps, had to learn english, my parents (both with technical university degrees) went to community college and worked low wage jobs to pay the rent, bills and tuition. we had a super old used ford that was rusting everywhere a vehicle can rust and the dollar store was where we went shopping. today, i'm somewhere between employee and executive [limited only by personal preference of work/life balance] thanks to my parents; my children will certainly have it easier than my folks or i ever did. but to say that it was because of some innate wealth misses the mark.
I'm not sure it misses the mark. All data show that wealth carries over multiple generations. That doesn't mean that non wealthy can't make it, just that wealthiest will, on average or even probably some p95 and up metric.
And wealth should be put into perspective, its often more to do with the surrounding education of the wealthy. If your surrounding growing up ran businesses of their own, knew how to manage people, understood finance, investments, calculating risks, knew about markets and business, had connections, that's a great environment to learn the same from. You mentioned both your parents had technical university degrees, so you had some advantage there.
Everyone can give it a shot, we have equal opportunity, but not equal challenges to face. You making it out of less is double awesome to you, even if maybe you felt it was easy, dunno, its still a hard thing you did, harder then if you had come from a more supportive environment.
Americans will never understand. Our parents stood in breadlines. We are making six figures in America.
It's not about wealth. It's about a culture that respects hard work, education, and opportunity.
100%
i was maybe 5 and remember very vividly standing in those same breadlines with them. about once a year we got to eat bananas, it was amazing. in america there's a walmart next door to a target next door to a whole foods or trader joes, and across the street there's a meijer next to jewel and a macys plus 3 footwear stores - all filled with stuff that never leaves the shelves. and that's just within this 3 mile radius! i don't want to describe it as amazing because it is incredibly wasteful, but holy hell!
meanwhile, a large portion of the US population [that struggles to come to grips with basic economic principles] is paralyzed with fear of immigrants "stealing" jobs - usually jobs that don't even require a GED. a minimum-wage job is not a career and not meant to support a family; you're meant to grow out of it.
I worry about the next generation. They say that wealth skips every other generation, because if a child grows up in a well-to-do family, they will not value hard work as much.
Strangely, in all the empirical studies of socioeconomic status and its relations to family and environment, I've ever seen one detect that effect.
I suspect that the popular saying really just reflects that parents and children have high contact and lots of friction, and grandparents and grandchildren less so, and nothing about the reality of wealth or hard work.
Don't forget that you have lived through a period of growth in the US. It might not happen again for this generation.
What if the fundamentals changes, and the situations/opportunities you have been through are no longer there?
We like to think we make our choices and ourselves. But most of the time we are driven by whichever random events come in our way.
It is very easy to assume this if you are a software engineer living in the Internet Bubble. Many people suck at basic elementary math. Way too many people. Let alone they start programming in a professional level.
Was that the case in the last 50 years? Not really. I know rich people who thrived in the last 50 years just by being frugal, hard-working and persistent. Despite having no STEM/Math or modern economical knowledge they were able to create wealth.
In today competitive world where capital is competing endlessly for market-share, I can hardly seeing them surviving let alone thrive. And don't forget todays media and social apps. Too many distractions. People are too drunk to be able to focus on building real stuff.
But then there are those who are both materially and educationally impoverished - those whose families struggled despite having been in the US for generations. Not sure it makes sense to conflate them with people like you.
i'm fairly certain the comment i was replying to was using 'wealth' in the literal, financial sense.
nevertheless, breaking the cycle of being disadvantaged by taking drastic measures and risks is something that's required in all cases. for us it was leaving everything behind and coming to the US with nothing. for someone who does not come from a background of education, delaying having children and spending more to go to school and establish a good base income would be a significant change from the norm perhaps.
different situations require different measures. as long as you have your health, there's little excuse to continually blame external factors, at least in the US.
Right there, there was enough wealth that you ultimately transferred for what was far better prospects in the US than in Russia. This was probably a very smart move that others with much less means from Russia might have had a very difficult time even leaving their country for the US in the first place.
On the executive front, yes, you are more likely to reach that level of position having a "wealthy background" but there are plenty who don't. Your odds of becoming a moderately successful executive of a medium sized business coming from a middle class background seem dramatically better than winning the tech startup lottery.
I dunno, I just think these categories are very broad and multi dimensional so that you can make decent arguments against the point that a wealthy background being required.
I really want to take this path at some point. I don't feel like I fit into either of these categories very well and the idea of having my own consulting firm has always appealed to me. I don't know where to start. Can you share some knowledge or tell me where I can contact you? If you're in the Bay Area I'd love to buy you a coffee and pick your brains.