[michaelochurch]

By "average", I meant "of average means". Whether there are "average people" is a silly argument. When I said "average people", I meant "people of average means".

If "average people" means "people of average talent and ambition", then we're talking about people who neither have the talent nor desire to do what Jobs did, so the discussion's irrelevant.

[jwallaceparker]

Doesn't the life of Steve Jobs discredit your argument?

From what I understand of his life story, he came from "average means" and achieved his success through his own creative capabilities.

[michaelochurch]

From what I understand of his life story, he came from "average means" and achieved his success through his own creative capabilities.

Ok, I agree with what you are saying, but a few things are worth attention.

First, he made a very smart decision. He started working before he had to, which meant that he could start attacking problems that interested him and working in ways that would enable him to grow right away. This may be a "secret" advantage of dropping out of college; you can start working before you have to do so because of social expectations, and therefore you get to do better work. Having to work is one of the biggest obstacles most people face in their working lives, because it means they can't concentrate on the best work.

Second, the 1970s in Silicon Valley was an atypical time when a 20-year-old nobody was taken seriously by highly influential people. That era has come and gone. The only 20-year-olds who can get sit-down meetings with partners at Sequoia in 2011 are those with rich parents. We may have a more open society in the geographical aggregate, but our world is much more closed than Northern California was in the 1970s.