[lamontcg]

how many people would have a $50,000 expense set their retirement savings back at last a couple years, if not bankrupt them?

none of these people are building a rocket company in their lives.

[ameister14]

$400 =/= $50000

Also Jeff Bezos was born to a high school attending mom who worked as a secretary and went to night school after she quickly became a single mom - he built a rocket company

[sillysaurusx]

Good lord. Jeff Bezos worked in finance and had a six figure job lined up if Amazon failed.

I can’t figure out if this is an HN thing, but this cult mentality of “anyone can do it” needs to die out.

[ameister14]

I honestly don't understand. If your point is someone who has only worked jobs for minimum wage is never going to suddenly start a rocket company I'd say you're correct. Especially if someone built or found their safety net on their own, I don't think we should begrudge them having it.

How do you think this works? Do you think 'anyone can do it' means winning the lottery? It means working really hard, getting lucky along the way, and being smart - that likely means getting into finance if it's the 80's and early 90's and tech if it's late nineties and aughts. It doesn't happen overnight.

The reality is, though, that you don't have to be born to millionaires to be one of the richest people in the world.