The class pay gap: why it pays to be privileged

Let's use that old adage about if you want to be a successful tech founder, drop out of Harvard.

Let's unpack this a little:

1. Think about what you need to even get to Harvard (access to good schools, with well prepared teachers and the right curriculum)

2. You have to actually know this "tech founder" job exists, is a career and how it is structured and the path to get there (assumes you know some other tech people or at least access to information about tech people)

3. You need to have enough money or access to money to seed your idea and pay your expenses while you are building this idea (rich friends, rich family, inheritance, access to food and shelter - without a paycheck to fund it)

4. Some connections or something to get in the door of an incubator, an angel investor or other person who help you get you the infrastructure you need to build your idea

And that is not even the part of having a good idea.

But most importantly you need enough support so if you fail, whether it is fast or slow, you can get back on your feet again. Less privileged folks don't have the opportunity to fail more than once typically. And that is really what holds you back - no access to be able to take a risk. If you need a paycheck to cover basic necessities, no way you will forgo that for something that may not work out at all.

apply the same logic when thinking about politics, museum curators and a host of other influential roles in our society

First, this is about the UK, which is a more "class-based" society than the US. It probably also applies to the US, but perhaps a bit less.

Second, they note that an architecture firm didn't operate the same way, because results mattered, and customers could tell whether they were being snowed. Many of us here are in programming, which (at least much of the time) is a similar environment. We're fortunate to be able to escape this kind of stuff. However, we should be aware that it may be more prevalent in society as a whole than we see and experience.