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Comment by reduce | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, there's a huge difference in the psychological impact of seeing role models in-person, versus only on a screen.

I've experienced this many times while living outside of the US, in recent years. All of the people you'll read about in blogs, or see in videos -- they're perceived like movie stars or legends that must have been greatly distorted on their journey to the opposite end of the world. Keep in mind that many small countries have never seen a single big tech-startup success happen within their borders. Even suggesting a remote possibility of successes, will be met with the argument that every successful person they've ever known hasn't followed what they call the "American" startup way.

In-person role models -- can't underestimate the psychological impact.

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> many small countries have never seen a single big tech-startup success happen within their borders

That sounds more like a difference caused by economic and cultural circumstances than whether you've met a rockstar in person.

If Country X is unable to produce viable startups, it's probably because it doesn't have the economic and cultural infrastructure to support startups yet, not because Peter Thiel has never graced that country with a royal visit.

> every successful person they've ever known hasn't followed what they call the "American" startup way.

Of course they haven't. The "American startup way" is optimized for the specific economic and cultural circumstances that are only found in certain parts of the United States. Some aspects of it may be generalizable, but most of it isn't. Following it to the letter in any other country will probably earn you nothing but ridicule and bankruptcy.

The countries I'm talking about have produced many startup founders. They move to the US and never move back. The successful role models don't exist in that country, because as soon as people start becoming successful they move out and never return.

The effect is real and pronounced.

One of the perceived privileges of the elite is their very access to opportunity, and being there is to provide that access.

Not being there is to observe the access, which is the addition of transparency that never existed before, but fundamentally the access hasn't been granted.

If you're already in a tough place without access to these kinds of opportunity, this is just going to underline and bold that some more.

Why the gnashing of teeth? Yes, privilege is real, but they had to pick some place to do it, and it's a hell of a lot better to have it online and for free than to not have it online and for free.

No gnashing of teeth, just a deep empathy (I was homeless/street-sleeping when young) with people who feel that they are (for whatever reason: geographical, socioeconomical, gender, racial, etc) lacking in privilege and locked out.

If you're going to take the attitude that nothing except physical proximity to a handful of high-status individuals will suffice, then you've defined terms under which almost everyone has to lose, no matter what happens. Then the dynamics of zero-sum games inevitably cause the value that would have been accrued by the handful of winners to be destroyed in fighting over who gets to be in that handful.

I say bugger that for a game of soldiers. No, you don't have to meet one of the 'legends' before you can succeed. That sort of thinking is false, poisonous and destructive. In almost all cases, the first step on the road to success is understanding that life is not a zero-sum game.

There's a quote from Lost which seems apropos - "It's one thing to believe it, it's another to see it". That's the effect I get from reading about all these stuff online.

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