That's a very incorrect suggestion. It reminds one of how people like to pretend that Elon's money is because his family had an emerald mine. Do you think that a significant percentage of wealth inheritors go on to immigrate across the world and invent electric cars and reusable rockets? Same thing with YC and the investment climate.
The pandemic period was the best example - monetarily, that was the last 12 years compressed into a 2 year window. The amount of money in the system was so immense that anything and everything was being funded at absurd valuations.
I'm not an insider and I don't personally know any of their principals. But I have followed their work and read what they write, and I am absolutely certain they are considerably above the mean when it comes to intellect and operational ability.
I also suspect they have benefitted to some greater or lesser extent that is unknown to me from connections in government. But like it or not thats part of how the game works, so if you want to be at the top of the game you have to play ball.
Nudging policymakers in a favorable direction on legislation that could effect your portfolio is the most obvious, but there are tons of other examples as well.
I'm not arguing that this is a primary driver of YC's success (I don't know the extent, if any, of their government influence), but you'd be silly to think that political connections can't benefit an investor.
[1] when lending to veterans, which the company in question did
What he did invent is the snake oil salesman pitch. Oh wait, actually... he did not invent that either.
Well, would he be a billionaire, if he didn't inherit an emerald mind?
> Do you think that a significant percentage of wealth inheritors go on to immigrate across the world and invent electric cars and reusable rockets?
What portion of people who inherit no wealth whatsoever, do that? What portion become billionaires? Well, that can't be that hard to find out:
https://ips-dc.org/the_self-made_hallucination_of_americas_r...
Looking at forbes 400, 22% have backgrounds with inheritances up to 1 million, 11.5% over 1 million, 7% over 50 milllion, and another 21.25% earned their way onto forbes 400 through inheritance alone. So that leaves 22% of forbes 400 maybe not having inherited that much, although the category is shared with people who inherited up to 1 million.
That's just regarding inheritance, there's also the simple side effects of growing up in a wealthy family such as having the best educational (read: networking) opportunities money can buy, having the best healthcare on earth, being well fed, etc.
I think thus it's very easy to guess that Elon would not be a hundred billionaire, or billionaire at all, if he was the exact same brain born to some working class family in south africa.
Yes, because he didn't inherit an emerald mine.
There are many brilliant people in South Africa who are born into wealth and none of them have reached the same heights as Elon Musk.
Even if it were the case, wouldn't your argument then predict that there would be many people MUCH wealthier than him because they were born into the vast riches and privilege that is America and Europe?
Jeff Bezos used to work as a cook at McDonalds in his teenage years.
Ugh, I'll be honest, I'm kinda tired of this "debate." We're really going to keep peddling the myth that any hard working joe can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become a billionaire? That's the tale we're telling with a straight face in 2023?
- Oprah Winfrey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey)
- Howard Schultz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz)
- Ralph Lauren (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Lauren)
- Larry Ellison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison)
- Kenneth Langone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Langone)
- David Murdock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Murdock)
- Alan Gerry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Gerry)
- John Paul DeJoria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_DeJoria)
It doesn't though, since your claim is bullshit. Elon's wealth is absolutely based on his parents' success.
I'm not actually saying that he's not a great business tycoon, he clearly is based on track record. Plenty of people have the kind of base resources he had without amounting to anything. Either they don't bother to even try or are too stupid or too unlucky too succeed. His parents wealth is still the catapult that launched him to his current success.
There are plenty of people who could have done what he's done but did not because of lack of resources.
With X.com he did quite a bit than invest as all of the other cofounders left prior to launch. By the time they merged with cofinity Elon was the only one of the original team.
But a lot of middle-class people try and fail to create any kind of business.
The reason is that it takes more than money and education to build a business.
Money and education are necessary to build a great business, like electricity is for your home, but insufficient, as your home also needs good construction, running water, etc.
Elon's inherited wealth and excellent upbringing were necessary for his Tesla and SpaceX success, but far from sufficient.
If a good rich childhood was all that's necessary to commercialize electric cars, reusable rockets, and fast satellite internet, then we'd have a lot more of these kinds of amazing products as millions of people have good rich childhoods.