Don’t forget good looks and a rich uncle to bail you out of a jam.
Jeff Bezos now has more money than can be made if an American family earned 63k for 2 million years. He also had parents that gave him a so-called "three hundred thousand dollar investment" (more money than most people see in a lifetime even while working hard for their family, dedicating most of their life to work and barely managing to enjoy life), while ignoring or dodging every single tax he can get away with.
It's weird how most people are fine with that, because they seem to see themselves as temporarily embarrassed billionaires, or because they aren't able to understand the sheer amount of money.
Jeff Bezos also had a teen mother, a biological father that abandoned him, and a Cuban immigrant father that came to the US alone at 16 with nothing and no ability to speak English.
After passing through a refugee camp, just six years later Mike Bezos was raising Jeff as his own and had successfully gone to college.
If - having survived all of that well enough to build a decent life for himself - Mike could afford to invest into his son's business, then it's a remarkable accomplishment that should be cheered, rather than attacked.
Quick research says that Mike Bezos worked as an engineer for Exxon after graduating college, and saving that money wisely can add up to $300k.
Let alone that Sr. should have the knowledge and support he required to manage his money so well. I look at the Jr. Bezos having a privilege to have a father who he could turn to for advise, or who may have guided his development. Not saying he did, cuz I don't know the family, but it sounds like it was a real possibility. Who saves all that money, only to entrust it to his estranged son who he don't know or trust--as if he haven't had a hand in imparting the necessary temperament, sensibility, and wisdom for his son to be successful in some way in the economy? LOL.
How many people today are fortunate to have grown up in this time, in this is a period of unprecedented economic growth and social change, who have squandered their earnings, because they didn't have the support of knowledgeable and trustworthy parents or family?
Sounds to me like a chain of great decisions, luck or both.
I can give a counter example. I moved to an affluent town on the North Shore of Long Island, NY. I met a woman in my neighborhood who described to me her career at the local hospital, as a nurse, for over 20 years. She's African American, and landed this job in the late 70s early 80s by my calculation. She benefited by the social changes at the time that accepted African Americans as nurses in a largely white community. I also met her son, and he struggles with under-employment in his career. I had the impression she didn't understand why he was in that situation. She was proud of her success. I imagine it was difficult for her to reconcile her career in nursing, and her son's struggles. She had success, why not him? Unlucky, more like it.
Right now--that hospital is part of one of those large health care corporate systems. If she had this job today, its very possible she would not have seen her salary increase year after year, nor enjoyed a pension, nor stayed with the same organization for so long just being a nurse. There will always be new nurse graduates with more energy with just enough knowledge who are more manageable by corporate. That's the reality of hospitals and healthcare today, despite growth in this field.
Fortune goes to the right person who is in the right place at the right time. And if you frack up and fall out, someone else is ready to take your place, hey. Who in a great position can say they did it entirely alone? Meag Lottery winners. haha.
I hope people don't mind the former, but the latter is a bit problematic. When individuals can control that much wealth, democracy breaks down, they can control politics. It wouldn't hurt capitalist incentives at all if the richest of the rich were limited to earning say $100 m.
parents != parents
maybe i'm stating the obvious, but "if you want to get rich, come up with a good idea and work hard" is way easier when your parents can invest 300K in your startup and you have that safety net to fall back on. as in, that's a substantial factor into somebody's "self-madeness" that's often overlooked
(i know that's not what you said, but imo it's a common sentiment re: creating a successful business)
They may never be able to achieve even modest financial security and live in constant dread that they'll lose one of their 2-3 jobs and be on the street, but hey, they can define success as meaning a family that loves them, so that makes absolutely everything OK! /s
But what you can do is realise that things aren't always under your control so not to worry about them. Instead just concentrate on things you do have and things you can do. You have the power to be useful to society so do that. You have the power to do good things so do it. How you feel doesn't really matter.