[TheOtherHobbes]

Elon, Zuck, Bezos, Jobs all had incredibly privileged backgrounds. Jobs was probably the poorest - which is to say his adopted parents were comfortably middle class - but he also had a mentor who worked at HP and deliberately scouted out smart kids with an interest in electronics.

There's a sweet spot where opportunity, mentoring, and motivation are far more evenly distributed. The ideal growth culture provides a mix of challenges for everyone who can handle them and support - of all kinds - for everyone who shows some evidence of talent and motivation.

Culturally we're nowhere close to that. So instead we have fairytales about super-special people who are incredibly smart and hard working - where in fact they're not outstandingly smart or hard working, but they may be more motivated (not always for good reasons) and possibly more divergent than average. And mostly they're born with extra opportunities which aren't available to most people.

It's debatable if this is inspiring - or at least questionable if it's more inspiring than a much wider range of successes and success stories would be.