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Yes, I mostly agree with your point. I have been reading a lot of biographies of successful entrepreneurs lately and have discovered that quite a lot of spinnin

Yes, I mostly agree with your point. I have been reading a lot of biographies of successful entrepreneurs lately and have discovered that quite a lot of spinning and outright fabrication occurs in how their backgrounds are presented. Like right now I am reading Elon Musk's biography. It's said he had a "tough" upbringing. Yet he had access to a "Commodore VIC-20" in apartheid-era South Africa and further was able to easily immigrate to Canada and later America in search of further opportunities because he was a Canadian citizen via his mother.

rchaud 11y ago
Not just that, but he also attended Queens University, one of the best public universities in Canada at a total cost of almost zero due to his ctizenship. I believe he completed his undergrad studies at Amherst College, however.
rwhitman 11y ago
Elon Musk's dad was an engineer, and his mother was a model. Even if assuming he wasn't crazy wealthy, he was at least partially exposed to engineering, and brushed with educated people from an early age. Not to mention, from Wikipedia "In 1995, Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started Zip2, a web software company, with US$28,000 of their father's (Errol Musk) money." I adjusted for inflation, that was $44k in today's dollars - quite a substantial amount of money to be gifted from a parent. Plus in 1995 the very idea that the web not only existed but had investment potential was still limited to tech geeks. So at a time when I literally spent 2 full years furiously arguing to my own dad about why he should simply allow me to hook up my modem using the household phone line, somewhere else in the world is Elon Musk - smart, exceedingly well educated, born in a year with a small generational cohort, along with his also ambitious brother - cashing a generous $28k check from his engineer dad to build, at the exact perfect time in history, a website business in a space that has been duplicated literally thousands of times since, and later sells it for $307 Million. How many people even have the opportunity to nail a combo like that?
elcritch 11y ago
Having access to a "Commodore VIC-29" or other accoutrements of wealth doesn't prevent one from having a rough upbringing. From the biography details, it seemed Elon Musk had to deal with with psychologically skewed family members in addition to making way in a backwards society bent on apartheid and violence. That can break a man. These resonate with me precisely because I've had to endure similar things. Not every part of the US is a safe haven. I'm blessed to have gotten where I am, but it's not without scares and I'm sure Musk has his as well. Some parts of myth making actually brings out more of the truth in a story.

rchaud 11y ago

Not just that, but he also attended Queens University, one of the best public universities in Canada at a total cost of almost zero due to his ctizenship. I believe he completed his undergrad studies at Amherst College, however.

rwhitman 11y ago

Elon Musk's dad was an engineer, and his mother was a model. Even if assuming he wasn't crazy wealthy, he was at least partially exposed to engineering, and brushed with educated people from an early age. Not to mention, from Wikipedia "In 1995, Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started Zip2, a web software company, with US$28,000 of their father's (Errol Musk) money." I adjusted for inflation, that was $44k in today's dollars - quite a substantial amount of money to be gifted from a parent. Plus in 1995 the very idea that the web not only existed but had investment potential was still limited to tech geeks. So at a time when I literally spent 2 full years furiously arguing to my own dad about why he should simply allow me to hook up my modem using the household phone line, somewhere else in the world is Elon Musk - smart, exceedingly well educated, born in a year with a small generational cohort, along with his also ambitious brother - cashing a generous $28k check from his engineer dad to build, at the exact perfect time in history, a website business in a space that has been duplicated literally thousands of times since, and later sells it for $307 Million. How many people even have the opportunity to nail a combo like that?

elcritch 11y ago

Having access to a "Commodore VIC-29" or other accoutrements of wealth doesn't prevent one from having a rough upbringing. From the biography details, it seemed Elon Musk had to deal with with psychologically skewed family members in addition to making way in a backwards society bent on apartheid and violence. That can break a man. These resonate with me precisely because I've had to endure similar things. Not every part of the US is a safe haven. I'm blessed to have gotten where I am, but it's not without scares and I'm sure Musk has his as well. Some parts of myth making actually brings out more of the truth in a story.