[apatters]

> spot an extreme growth opportunity, bet everything on it, and be correct.

> Or be born into money. No amount of self-help is going to tilt the scale towards that.

While there are undoubtedly success stories which resemble both of these caricatures, I think they're in the minority. I can't say I'm hobnobbing with the Forbes billionaires list but I have personal relationships with many people who built successful businesses. Betting on a unique opportunity is often an amplifier, so is starting in a good place in terms of money/family. But what they all have in common is they focused religiously on the top line, they didn't fuck up the bottom line, and they worked very hard.

[bicubic]

You can't bet on an opportunity if you don't have any money to bet. I've lost count of how many ambitious and talented people I know who had ideas they wanted to bet on, but couldn't because of lack of disposable funds.

Having the resources to take risks is the number one factor to succeeding, I think. Being able to identify good opportunities comes after that.

[ryandrake]

And a lot of these people have the resources to keep betting after they fail. I recall someone I know who failed 4 businesses, falling back to his rich family after each try while he cooked up the next one. Eventually hit the jackpot on the fifth one and acted as though he was a self-made genius.

Baseball is easy when you have unlimited at-bats.

[stephengillie]

...born on 3rd base, having grown up thinking she had hit a triple... - various, 2013

[apatters]

Even if you have no money you can bet your personal time and effort.

I agree that having financial resources is a huge leg up, but I don't believe it's mandatory. My beliefs are formed from personal experience. I came from a working class family that lived below the poverty line. My parents kicked me out at 18 with a warning that if I ever wanted to come back I'd better be ready to pay them rent. (Resolved that I would never take them up on that offer, never did.) When I started my business I had $250 in the bank and no idea how I was going to pay the next month's rent.

For years I failed and I sacrificed where I had to. I worked long hours at terrible rates, I didn't spend a dollar more than necessary to survive, I gave up on my hope of saving and buying property, I neglected my health, I gave up on my hope of finding a partner and starting a family because women aren't interested in a nerd who has nothing to his name except dreams.

These are the sacrifices you can make if you aren't born into wealth but you want to achieve it. Some people absolutely have success handed to them. They have a safety net which allows them to fail until they succeed. For the rest of us, you sacrifice time, energy, opportunity, and health.

It took years but it worked, one day I hit on a great business and it all turned around.

Being broke certainly limits the type of opportunity you can invest in, but there's always something.

[schnitzelstoat]

> Being broke certainly limits the type of opportunity you can invest in, but there's always something.

Always? It's not a law of physics...

[taurath]

I’ll add - “they had the privilege of being able to focus their attention and not be harmed for it”.

[white-flame]

In betting on opportunity, often times they have everything riding on it.

Where does the "harm" you talk about come from? Usually it's because there are other responsibilities you're engaged with. If you literally give everything else up to focus on one thing, these barbs aren't in your life. I'm talking forgoing rent to crash with family/friends, eating ramen, selling/getting rid of your things, live on credit cards, etc, and have a 24/7 focus that keeps you going.

You'd be surprised how much that frees you from the immediate "harm" you describe, but you also have nothing to fall back on, because you pretty much have nothing else anymore than your pursuit, and can be amassing enormous debt (financial and otherwise). It's a huge amortized, pushed-forward harm in the hopes that the gamble pays off. For many, it doesn't.

[devdas]

That sounds like a fairly large financial privilege to me. If you are working two jobs to just get enough food to survive, and your friends are in a similar situation, you don't have that opportunity or ability to take risks.

[white-flame]

There are people who simply walk away from it all. None of these issues are truly and specifically "to survive", it's all chasing something.

[jhowell]

Spoken as someone who denies the safety net beneath their high wire act. For some the risks described and the comforts forgone in the hunt of prosperity are called life. Losing these resources means intense uncertainty of paralyzing outcomes. It's not our job to understand the plight of all around us with compassion, but it does make it easier to justify incongruent rewards they bring.

[taurath]

> You'd be surprised how much that frees you from the immediate "harm" you describe, but you also have nothing to fall back on..

All the things you described doing are the fallback options - you have to have a family and friends, things to sell, credit to burn. Even then, family or friends have less patience to carry you when you’re taking a moonshot unless they also have a lot they can fall back on.

[white-flame]

Specifically, I meant there's nothing to fall back on at the end if the gamble didn't pay off. Your family/friends are sick of you, you have nothing left to sell, any credit is trashed, and your venture didn't pan out.

[manigandham]

That's a very complicated situation. People, especially when young, have incredible freedom and really don't need much at all to survive. As they get older, 95% of the responsibilities they take on is their own doing.

That's not a judgement on what they choose, but many times the "lack of privilege" is really they because they made different choices.

[jhowell]

Or personal health outcomes in themselves or people they care about. As we get older this should not be understated and bears out in personal bankruptcy applications. Good health is the ultimate privilege. Many factors that determine good health are rooted in real privilege (safe streets, clean water, quality diet, free from sexual abuse, etc.)