[signatoremo]

Not the OP, but I can name many: Andy Grove (Intel) , Steve Jobs (Apple), Larry Page, Sergei Brin (Google), Reed Hastings (Netflix), Michael Dell (Dell).

They all seem to come from solidly middle or upper middle class, so no poverty but not different than many of us on HN.

[raw_anon_1111]

The argument was not that you had to be rich, just that you had a safety net so you could take risks and know you had a fallback without being homeless and hungry.

But the Google cofounders specifically both had parents who were early computer scientists or mathematicians

In all fairness, I haven’t been consistent between “coming from enough money that your parents can be your angel investors” and “you can afford to fail and call your parents for help with the rent”.

[signatoremo]

Your question is naming just one not coming from money. None of the people I listed did.

Wealthy background surely helps immensely, but other factors such as environment are vital as well. Google founders met at Stanford, in the heart of Silicon Valley, at the height of the dotcom era. That’s more important than their background.

Being wealthy is not the most important factor to one’s success. 50% of US population is middle class. Even if those I listed were all upper middle class, that would still be perhaps 5% of US population, or millions of people. Yet only a few rise to the top.