[nouveaux]

"One point of contention I have with this article is that it mentions that many CEOs were born during certain months and have names starting with certain letters. The mere mention of the phrase I am about to use always draws the ire of the HN crowd, but I see a big correlation/causation issue with that specific data point."

On the point of birth month, there is a cause. Kids born before the cutoff year for kindergarten are younger than kids born after the cutoff. At that age, every month of development makes a big difference in social skills, which leads to more leadership opportunities. Obviously it's not a direct causation but this point should not be ignored.

"As for the larger point of the article, I always frame this conversation in this way: if you were lucky enough to be born in a first world country, you can become a millionaire through hard work with relatively little luck involved, but you have to get very lucky to become a billionaire."

I agree with you and I would add that "hard work and thriftiness" lets most people with average luck become millionaire. This is the sentiment of the Millionaire Next Door.

[vecinu]

This is exactly what Malcom Gladwell talks about in Outliers: The Story of Success. He starts off by mentioning how hockey players have this age advantage since they are more physically mature than people born in other months and cut off by our artificially created system.

[dasil003]

Makes sense for hockey players given the investment they need in development from a young age and how that investment is directly based on physical evaluation. For CEOs that pattern doesn't exist save perhaps in the mind of status-obsessed parents.

[ABCLAW]

If you're the oldest individual in your elementary class, you've got ~11 months more development than your worst-off competitors. You carry that age advantage throughout every level of education you go through, allowing you differential access to awards, accolades, special opportunities, etc.

When development evens out following full development, you're already past the majority of the educational sorting mechanism - you've been scoring higher and formed by your experiences as a high performing student throughout.

[dasil003]

But in athletics you stop getting training and don't go to the next level if your performance is sub-par, so the effect is magnified.

[drb91]

> At that age, every month of development makes a big difference in social skills, which leads to more leadership opportunities.

Citation? This sounds suspiciously like Malcolm Gladwell, who is a pop psychologist hack and whose arguments hold water like a paper bag.