Mark, Bezos, Gates. Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money | Hacker News Reader

Mark, Bezos, Gates. Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire Is a Father with Money

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13 pointshalabarouma16 comments

Reaction to headline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller

Arguably the richest American of all time. His father was usually absent, and little more than a vagabond in any case.

Yet apparently the father could afford a housekeeper

According to Wikipedia John D was still able to borrow $1000 at the time from his dad to start a business though. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rockefeller_Sr.)

And Andrew Carnagie's father was a weaver and a unionist, not wealthy.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrew-Carnegie

Maybe, but there are millions of people who have wealthy fathers. Why aren't they all successful billionaires? Money is not the precursor to success. Drive, focus and vision are much more important than money. If people see that then money comes easy.

Lots of people have drive and vision but no material means to make it happen. Seems the material part is key to actualizing that.

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37620688

404

Sadly nobody archived it.

Can't forget Elon.

His father didn't have money. Elon left home at 17 and went to Canada. There is no emerald mine..

His father was a millionaire at times. His father was also broke at times.

That's fair, according to the Walter Isaacson biography, that just came out, Elon Musk left home with very little money, and made everything on his own. He didn't really receive any material support from his family. When his mother and brother joined him, she had to work three jobs to support them.

There are a lot of memes accusing Musk of nepotism, and inheriting his wealth, but that simply is not true

He received $28k from his father and $10k from his mother - in 1995 dollars that is not an insignificant amount of money. But, as far as I know, I agree that it feels false to paint him as someone who succeeded because of generational wealth.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/1/23895069/walter-isaacson-...

Elon came from a very privileged background. Of late, he's been trying to spin his bio as as plucky guy with little money. His family was upper middle class. Poor little rich boy.

Link: https://medium.com/@moh.aboelez/mark-zuckerberg-jeff-bezos-b...

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