Nah, I'll correct the record because anyone who worked hard enough absolutely had access to "that level of resources"

My grandparents, First generation immigrants without a college degree bought a beautiful single family house in 1960s Northern California on a working class salary. In fact they lived across the street from George Lucas (My grandmother knew his parents). They too, were a completely average, middle class family. Not any different from Steve Jobs or the hundreds of other success stories.

Over the course of the 80s, 90s, and 00s, the same city and cities like it became notorious for crime and gang violence, homes became unaffordable, and the conditions that allowed someone to "start a company out of a garage" was wiped out as society stratified into the super rich and the super poor. Which should serve as a cautionary tale of any place that is thinking of emulating the California success story.

Right, but having parents that worked hard enough to get that level of resources is another kind of luck.

Having a garage isn't enough. A lot of people with garages need to work everyday to pay for their garage, and food, and everything else. Bezos and Jobs both had free garages and free time paid for by their parents. I would bet the others mentioned in the post had the same sort of freebies.

Is the contrapositive also true? If Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos had been dirt poor in childhood rather than solidly middle class, would they not have had success? I.e. how much weight should we put on the things out of their control vs within their control?

It is impossible to know of course, but it is probably fair to say that if they had been born dirt poor they would have been much less likely to have the kind if incredible success that they did have

People like to say that success is right time, right place, but that's not all there is to it. You also need sufficient resources to take advantage of opportunity

Sitting on a gold mine does not matter if you don't have a shovel

Having a shovel doesn't matter if you don't know where to dig

And you need to have enough time ('runway' in startup speak) to actually try digging for gold in the first place

The cartoon "On A Plate"[1] comes to mind in this discussion.

1: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilswo...

Thanks for sharing, this is spot on

You need enough of both.

Few would suggest anyone having time, a place, necessities covered well enough, and few distractions is going to be ensured success.

But with those things, someone who also has ideas, insights, a strong work ethic (or often much better, a strong natural enthusiasm for something useful) has much better chances.

I got a lot of freebies from my parents and never been able to build a multi-billion dollar company.

I do believe you need someone to have your back for the basics, but there's much more to it.

Yes, though in the eighties and somewhat to the nineties you could own a home with modest job.

That was the era before globalization hollowed out the middle class

Ok, though believe the major factor was a refusal to build enough new housing.