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by Throwaway23412 3674 days ago
>Facebook

No one denies that Facebook was built through hard work and perseverance, but how many people have doctor parents, a software engineer for a private tutor in middle school, admittance to the richest private boarding school in the country, a (former) best friend whose father is a wealthy industrialist, and a number of other untold privileges?

Using Zuckerberg as an example of a self-made person really hurts your argument.

1 comments

Indeed.

Where are all the multibillion unicorn startups created by people from working class backgrounds?

Meanwhile:

Elon Musk - engineer father, privately educated

Jeff Bezos - landowning grandfather who was also regional director of the Atomic Energy Commission, engineer father

Bill Gates - father lawyer, mother on the board of IBM, privately educated

Steve Jobs - working class adoptive parents (but a complicated and interesting genetic background), father not an engineer but encouraged tinkering

Larry Page - father had PhD in CS and encouraged tinkering on hardware around the house

Sergey Brin - father maths professor, mother NASA researcher

I'm not sure if this has been researched, but it looks as if success in tech correlates with high IQ parents and plenty of opportunities for experimentation and hands-on tinkering.

I'm sure there are people doing okay in tech who had no parental input at all, but I'd guess they're much rarer than those who had opportunities and encouragement.