[insanitybit]

I don't see how. I said celebrity and wealth are what they have in common and what they have leveraged. Elon was wealthy before he was famous, he became famous in important circles, and eventually he became globally famous.

[neltnerb]

Yeah... I'm failing to see how "barely more than a nobody" can be applied to anyone who had access to lot of wealthy networks. Maybe in comparison to others in that universe, but put any one of them out in the general public and the imbalance of power is pretty obvious.

If you can reasonably self-fund a startup with employees for a while, you are not a nobody and you are likely far more powerful than 95% of the population. You can literally dictate what other human beings do for 40 hours a week. That's not being a nobody...