Every time someone brings up people being self-made the discussion turns into post hoc justification. It seems that we can't simply accept someone's immense suc

Every time someone brings up people being self-made the discussion turns into post hoc justification. It seems that we can't simply accept someone's immense success and we must find some excuse for why they made it. Yes, luck and the people around them play a role in any success (and equally, in any failure) and that must be accounted for, but that's not nearly enough to automatically discount the actual person. I guarantee if a the son of a middle class innkeeper with an absentee father from Greenbow, Alabama became a billionaire people would say he had an advantage because he got to experience a diverse group of people as a kid and had a loving mother who supported him. An orphan living on the streets in an impoverished town in Italy and we'd say not everyone has the opportunity to make their own way when they're only 9 years old. Shrug.