Nvidia’s CEO Is the Uncle of AMD’s CEO

It was already there, but depending where you're from, "first cousin once removed" might not mean anything to you, especially if English is not your mother tongue. Seeing a family tree makes it clear for everyone regardless of language or culture what the relationship is.

I felt that doing things “differently” or having unique background is more often perceived positively in the US than in the EU. In the EU, the norms force you to fit in, whereas in the US, you are allowed to pave your own way, whether that means success or failure.

I'd say it is, considering they/we have decades of data on what makes immigrants successful and what not.

Maybe so, but even Sony and Nissan had non-Japanese speaking CEOs for a while and Japan is not really know for its openness and progressiveness to foreigners.

Also, we're talking about global tech companies which reap profits from the global economy, so fluency of the local language that's only spoken by 5% of the world's population shouldn't matter that much, when those mega-corps hire teams of cultural and language experts for each market anyway.

I'd say it's more culture, mentality and protectionism of the status quo, than the language itself.

Difficult to get the exact stats because it is illegal to measure demographic breakdowns in many European countries.

   In France having a teacher as a parent is a better indicator of whether you'll get into a top school than being rich.

I don't doubt your characterization of the situation in France at all, and there are certainly a plethora of great universities in the U.S. that have reasonably accessible admissions, but the "top" schools (Ivys, MIT/Caltech, etc.) are certainly beyond the reach of many, and favor those who know how to play their game.

Your POV is simply, factually, wrong; more people get high SATs and apply to the Ivy League schools than they can admit by a wide margin, and there are a lot of tricks (many of which leverage accidents of birth, wealth, and social circle) beyond that which go to getting to the top of the list.

The bigger ones involve the hyper rich buying buildings, and the merely very rich engaging in bribery which is higher risk when discovered, but legacies, padding applications with extracurrriculars for which opportunities are very much not equal, etc., all play a role.

What do you mean? As an immigrant to France when I was in 3rd grade [0], I knew in a couple of months that I had to go to a good high-school, to get into a good prep school, to get into a good grande école. Everybody knows this. And everybody knows how to get there: be good at math, and have good grades in general.

[0] In France, school grades are "reversed". Grades 6 to 3 are "collège" / middle school / junior high. Grades 2, 1, "terminal" are high-school.

Here's a different view. More than 2 million people take the SAT each year. The top 1% score between 1550 and 1600. They number more than 20000 people each year. You can have straight As K-12, achieve a 1570 on the SAT, be president/captain of three clubs/teams, play two musical instruments, be a National Merit Scholar, serve on the board of some national organization, win 12 state championships, and still not get accepted to an Ivy League school. Or you can have a B here and there, score a 1500 SAT and get accepted.

My point is that it is not as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, and getting approved for a loan.

Not true.

What happens, and not only in France (it's like that in the UK as well), is that primary and secondary schools that are in not very good areas are not ambitious for their pupils. They'll say average is fine, going to a technical college is very good, etc. so in the end those pupils do not think of taking the "high road" because they've been convinced it is not for them.

On the other hand, if your parents are highly educated and you go to one of the top secondary schools you'll be pushed and told that you should work hard and that you can get into a top university.

It's more like the teacher in France example, except you also have to be rich.

I bet you're correct with other industries such as investment banking or finance though.

You are right about this being different:

> On the contrary, here in Germany these positions are usually filled through either familial connections or company-internal mentorships.

Some government jobs are notoriously products of nepotism and inbreeding, but private industry is, in my experience, invested in recruiting the best candidates available to them.

It’s hard to explain in a comment, and it’s easy for locals to take it for granted, but private industry in the US incentivizes speculation (risk-taking). It feeds into how we start companies, how and when we invest, where we live, our liquid financial markets, and I think we idealize hiring not from academic titles or genes but from merit. This idea that we settle on the same things for the 30 years is somewhat antithetical to that.

Few of my friends that launched startups, despite being based in Europe, working from Europe, and everyone being European, incorporated in Delaware anyway.

US is simply friendlier to ambitious and greedy people. You can be so anywhere in the world but you won't get the same benefits you get in the United States.

do people just not know how to Google things these days?

At the very least, we can agree that using "uncle" like this is incredibly easily misinterpreted.

First of all, I never said it did. More importantly, though, they weren't able to flee the revolution with all their money, as most of it was confiscated by the Iranian government.

These types of folks are quite privileged, but not in ways that are often presented in arguments like the one you gave, i.e. "they were just born into money". Their main privileges are connections, their inherent confidence and belief that they have the power to be successful, and a deeply ingrained work ethic.

https://observer.com/2018/10/uber-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-moth...