Turns out that having both grit and a large family nest egg too reduce the consequences of failure go a long way together. But maybe they're rare to have together: the safety net reduces the need for grit.
Plus a lot of rich-person-worship (1) and self-glorification (2).
(1) The press version: "Econ Tusk is rich, and he got there by working 22 hours a day, exercizing for 1 1/2hour, and taking a single 30 minute power nap. The secret of his success? Endless grit. It doesn't have anything to do with striking it rich by building a payment app as a regular nerd (that might just as well have gotten nowhere), and then diverting his efforts into media-friendly geek-wet-dream VC instruments that are perfect as opportunities of government contracts and subsidies".
(2) The interview/autobiography version: "How did I made it? I gave it all I've got, risked everything, and worked hard every day. Sure, it only 2 two years before we were bought and I made 100s of millions, working was mostly maginal helping our first employees in building the MVP, business meetings, bossing people around, and having the 'vision', the risk was minimal because I had an MBA and/or CS skills I could use to get a job anytime, and everything was paid by VCs anyway, but it was all grit I tell you".
Elon Musk, with his brother received a $28,000 investment from their father in their first business. That's a lot, but not more than many kids receive toward their college education. When they started they could only afford one computer, so the site was up during the day and down at night so he could write the software.
Not nothing, but hardly ridiculous inherited wealth either.
I could not resist (Chesterton's "The Fallacy of Success")[0].
[0] https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/the-fallacy-of-success
> Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel, the gospel of success, or seed faith)[A] is a religious belief among some Protestant Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one's material wealth.[1]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
* https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-...
Dave Ramsey, who's not shy about his faith, doesn't go that far:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUJjUxyIwbA
Bishop Barron from the Catholic perspective:
I added the tongue-in-cheek admission to my fake quotes for fun :-)
> The standard one [story] is a comforting tale about grit in the face of adversity – overcoming obstacles, honing skills, working hard – which then inevitably affords entry to the Promised Land. ... But you can also tell a different story, which is more about luck than pluck, and whose driving forces are less your own skill and motivation, and more the happy circumstances you emerged from and the accommodating structure you traversed.
I admire the heck out of em but I can see most people don’t want that life. I have no doubt that kind of work ethic could be wasted in the wrong environment but a successful person should have both grit and the ability to find an environment where they can use it to get ahead.
I’d even argue that corporate America as whole rarely rewards grit with a couple exceptions.
Reminds me of this quote:
"Free enterprise needs elbow room"
-Poul Anderson
That's exactly the point. There's a huge number of people bringing a hell of a lot of hustle to just keeping their head above water.
There was a brilliant blog post a couple years ago pointing out that perfect competition - from the perspective of the gig worker on the ground - is fundamentally dystopian. When you're providing a commoditized service (like driving a car) in perfect competition, you've got nowhere to go but working harder or smarter. Which quickly means that everyone in the market is working just as hard and smart, bringing maximum hustle (or, if you prefer, grit) just to hang on.
I'd say that's exactly the case. It's a game for them and the money gained is just an additional motivation and something that makes them do it more and more... the hook plus the drugs included in one package, I guess.
And I'm talking far beyond just stock market games. I am talking anything and everything that makes money, including just hearing about a struggling business, buying all its assets and then reselling them at 500% profit in a matter of week.
If a millionaire decides that they will run a successful restaurant come hell or high water then that is what will happen as they're now spending double the typical startup cost of a new restaurant they can be quite bad at it and still be successful.