I’ll just add to OP’s point with my own example: I’m a Brazilian that grew up in a middle-class family and sort of “made it” working at multiple FAANG in my 20s

I’ll just add to OP’s point with my own example: I’m a Brazilian that grew up in a middle-class family and sort of “made it” working at multiple FAANG in my 20s. OP is totally right that our education system is broken. I was lucky enough that my dad worked at Petrobras (Brazilian oil company) and, at the time, they payed for half my high school fees. I also had a 50% scholarship and that made it possible for my parents to send me to a good private school. Initially I got into a sort of public “trade school” in high school. I was taking high school classes in the morning and IT/programming classes in the afternoon. After a month of that I just quit and asked my parents to go back to the private school because I felt I wouldn’t be able to pass the university entrance exams if I stayed there. That’s how bad it was. As to the Brazilians working hard, yeah I agree with that. After I went to the private high school I took the trade school entrance exam again, but this time to take the classes at night. My second and third years of high school were pretty much: Wake up at 5.30am, go to high school till 1pm, go to a “cram school” in the afternoon to practice for the university entrance exams, and then from 7pm to 11pm go to trade school. Looking back I’m not sure how I managed that. I even developed some serious migraines due to the lack of sleep and stress. Thankfully it went away after I went to uni and my workload dropped. I was just really lucky to be in a position where I could go all in. Unfortunately the reality is that most people don’t have an environment that would allow them to do that.