Sigh.
No, it's not an appetite for risk. It's that those risks get less risky.
People become more "risk tolerant" when those risks are less of a threat to them, their survival, their future, etc.
That's a little like saying "Rich people eat at more expensive restaurants than poor people because they have the appetite for it." No, they don't. They have the same appetite as a poor person. They just have more ability to pay for the better restaurant.
Duh.
E.g. Poor and rich alike are at risk of losing the capital they put into the business. For the rich that might be daddy's money, while for the poor that might be their life savings. Both are at risk of being unemployed and without healthcare. For the rich that might be fine, but for the poor that could be life-threatening.
Now I'm 40, I've got more financial independence but dont really have the drive anymore.
Your need for success diminishes with wealth though. A lot of founders struggle to motivate themselves to push through the hard stuff, get over the pits of depression, and to drive themselves following mistakes and rejections if they have resources to fall back on. It's a lot easier to take a month off and book a nice vacation after you've been told "no" by an investor or a major customer than it is to keep going and fire up your IDE or pick up the phone to chase another sale.
Many of the founders I've met work crazy hard because they won't be able to pay the rent if they don't. They literally don't have a choice except to succeed. That's a hell of a motivator that wealthy people will never have.
Most founders I know can easily find a normal 9-5 job if they wanted to.
Other motivators are required.
Yes it is. Injuries & medical care/accessibility/costs can fuck you harder than you could ever imagine. Even when you may have been previously making mid-deep into 6 figures.
Depends on your definition of success. One's need of work to pay the bills might decrease with wealth. Yet one's mindset may change to not consider themselves successful until they attain some higher thing (like a big house, fancy cars, expensive vacations, etc).
These founders you're talking about, are they also choosing to live in expensive areas? If they change their definition of success, it's possible they could do different jobs or live in cheaper areas.
It's all about the definition.
The son of a wealthy family may think going to Google is the same as failure. He has the money to try over and over again and does so because working for someone else is like being a sheep.
There are people out there whose problem is not that they aren’t smart, but that they don’t have the resume that is aligned with HR filters. Their two biggest and relatively substantial hurdles are: 1) not getting a chance for even a first interview because they are immediately being rejected purely based on their resume, and 2) having a weak position going into salary negotiations.
So, imho “a smart person can always get a well paying job” is a gross oversimplification often made by people who are not in such circumstances.
- going to a bad public school because you live in a poor area has ripple effects that may put you in a worse position than some private prep school kid
- if you grew up in poverty, your brain will literally grow differently due to chronic stress, environmental toxins, lack of stimulation, etc. [1].
We pretend like filtering for “smart” is fair, but the opportunity to be smart is heavily weighted by privilege.
Money can't buy you love.
I’m not saying growing up rich is always easy, but the point is it’s _more likely_ to be easy than if you’re poor.
Certainly, all other things being equal, it's generally better to have more resources. But life isn't quite that simple and sometimes the price involved in successfully pursuing money involves a human cost.
If you can have lots of money and also have time for the children and also are a decent person, etc, cool. Some people pull that off.
And some people don't.
The skill development part requires free time (to learn and practice) and access (to computers, tools, people, etc.)
If we're talking about creating just any kind of business, then sure hard work and determination are enough. If we're talking about outlier success stories in tech, then privilege is almost always a component of the story.
I'd consider that a feature, not a bug for the question of global stage level founding: the subset of rich parents offspring who goes after building something aims for building something actually big, not just for the first best thing that promises access to the world of fancy cars and being someone's boss.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with starting a business aimed at bootstrapping itself and funding a car, later a house and in the end maybe even a boat. I have much greater sympathy for those than for people aiming to be the next unicorn (that term hasn't really made the jump into this decade, or has it?). But when it does come to this scope, I'd take it for granted that the born rich run a considerably higher chance of not getting blinded by high numbers and not deluding themselves.
The notion of having roommates or not a few years of savings just isn't as cool or interesting as it once sounded. Granted, it feels weird to think about giving up on something I thought I wanted to do for a really long time, but that's just life sometimes.
You could say the opposite, and it would be just as true. Risk is an individual choice, not an environmental one.