[greggyb]

> high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net.

Supporting a few sibling commenters here. I believe it is more nuanced than a safety net provided by parental wealth.

I definitely come from a background of privilege. My grandfathers were both high status professionals. My parents were a combination of high-performing professional and Ph.D. I have pursued several ventures. I have no major success to report from a startup perspective, but plenty of professional success. I have certainly taken risks in my career.

I have never consciously planned risks around the thought that my parents could provide a safety net. I have always had backup plans several layers deep and my parents have never factored into those plans. I cannot rule subconsciously banking on their support. Luckily I've never had to fall through all my backup plans.

Like I said, I certainly come from privilege. I'm not trying to say I did it all on my own. I am not trying to say my parents had nothing to do with it. Just that my safety net has not been planned around any parental largesse. I built it on a foundation provided by them.

I like to put it this way: I am a self made man. I made myself and achieved what I have on my own. I have achieved it with skills and a mindset that I learned from my parents. That I learned from the high quality education that they directly gave me and that they made sure I got in my schooling. I have achieved it with a confidence borne of an upbringing that tells me I deserve success and should expect it if I work well. I have achieved it in an economy that is supportive of professional development. I have achieved it by working hard - and being lucky enough that my work got to start at 0 instead of in a socioeconomic hole. I have achieved it by being lucky enough to live in a society where I am not discriminated against. I have achieved it by being lucky enough to be born in a time and place, and to parents, that were conducive to my hard work and to my success. I am a self-made man, but I don't think that's too much to brag about given the privilege I was born to.

So, there was never any direct safety net from my parents, but the safety net was there d/t the circumstances of my birth and life and luck. These things enabled hard work to pay off. Unfortunately hard work is not enough on its own. Luckily for me, I did hard work in the right time and place.

[taneq]

I agree that there's more to it than growing up comfortably well off. Among other factors there's the mindset; I grew up in a professional family with deeply working class roots, and was raised with the idea that the way to get ahead in life is to get a good education so you can get a good job. The prospect of owning a company or being an employer rather than an employee was never even acknowledged. It took me a long time to break out of this mindset despite always having a general feeling that owning a company was the only real way to get ahead.

[daxfohl]

I think this is a valid counterpoint. I didn't mean for it to sound like "silver spoon" kids get their success given to them, and debated deleting the assumption sentence after posting. The intent was just a note for OP to factor into account. But it sounds like a lot of others read it the first way.

[greggyb]

I get what you mean. And I agree. It's a huge impact. I am incredibly lucky, as are others with similar backgrounds.

In hindsight, I'm honestly not even sure that the nuance matters. The effect is largely the same whether there is truly a "safety net" of any sort, or whether the circumstances of birth and raising eliminate the need for a safety net.

[discordance]

Yes agreed - it was luck that you gave you the ability to then become a self-made man.