That is not true tho. They did not risked "everything". That is super exaggerated framing. They risked not succeeding and being slightly worst off then other guys at most.
And big capital people risked "becomming a middle class" at worst.
And big capital people risked "becomming a middle class" at worst.
Frankly, too many people like to talk about risk taking in fairly low risk situations.
When you look at capital and risk, the risk are not that large. And economic policy favorwed capital over labor literally for decades on top of it.