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How many of those 10k would have the same background? We can pretend Bezos' dad raised him in a "normal" middle class background then randomly dropped 300K on

How many of those 10k would have the same background? We can pretend Bezos' dad raised him in a "normal" middle class background then randomly dropped 300K on him, or we can acknowledge he is the business equivalent of an Olympic athlete.

varelse 2y ago
Bezos? Abandoned by his dad who was literally an alcoholic clown and raised by his mom and her 2nd husband Bezos? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Jorgensen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Jorgensen So $300K in 1994 is about $640K. That's nice but about 80th percentile of net worth. It's nice his parents believed in him. How many of your parents would do that for you? I'm sure at 1 in 5 of them have that kind of money because of the distribution here. So the difference here is He was smart, he got lucky, and your parents don't believe in you enough on this front. But compare and contrast Bezos and Musk. Bezos's mid-life crisis is leaving his wife to run around on his yacht banging models. Musk's mid-life crisis is trying to destroy democracy so he and his mom won't have to pay US taxes. Neither one is a role model, but I don't even get the point of the latter. Which brings us back to AlphaFold. The AlphaFold team did something amazing. But also, they had a backer that believed in them. David Baker, for better or worse, didn't achieve what they did and he'd been at it for decades. It's amazing what good backing can achieve.
- itishappy 2y ago
  I assumed the parent post was talking about his adopted father. The man who raised and dropped $250k on Bezos was Miguel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Bezos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Bezos
  - varelse 2y ago
    [dead]
IncreasePosts 2y ago
Miguel worked at Exxon for 32 years as an engineer and a manager. It's not like he was the CEO or anything close to that. There would literally be hundreds of thousands of people in a similar position to him across the world. Also worth noting that Jeff Bezos was(and I think still is) the youngest person who ever became a senior VP at DE Shaw. That is a position earned by merit alone.
adastra22 2y ago
I think you are agreeing with the poster you are responding to, right? Bezos is the equivalent of an Olympic athlete: a combination of innate talent as well as opportunity.
- stonemetal12 2y ago
  More or less. Money provides an environment where high achievement becomes possible, it isn't just start up funds.

varelse 2y ago

Bezos? Abandoned by his dad who was literally an alcoholic clown and raised by his mom and her 2nd husband Bezos? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Jorgensen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Jorgensen So $300K in 1994 is about $640K. That's nice but about 80th percentile of net worth. It's nice his parents believed in him. How many of your parents would do that for you? I'm sure at 1 in 5 of them have that kind of money because of the distribution here. So the difference here is He was smart, he got lucky, and your parents don't believe in you enough on this front. But compare and contrast Bezos and Musk. Bezos's mid-life crisis is leaving his wife to run around on his yacht banging models. Musk's mid-life crisis is trying to destroy democracy so he and his mom won't have to pay US taxes. Neither one is a role model, but I don't even get the point of the latter. Which brings us back to AlphaFold. The AlphaFold team did something amazing. But also, they had a backer that believed in them. David Baker, for better or worse, didn't achieve what they did and he'd been at it for decades. It's amazing what good backing can achieve.

itishappy 2y ago
I assumed the parent post was talking about his adopted father. The man who raised and dropped $250k on Bezos was Miguel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Bezos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Bezos
- varelse 2y ago
  [dead]

IncreasePosts 2y ago

Miguel worked at Exxon for 32 years as an engineer and a manager. It's not like he was the CEO or anything close to that. There would literally be hundreds of thousands of people in a similar position to him across the world. Also worth noting that Jeff Bezos was(and I think still is) the youngest person who ever became a senior VP at DE Shaw. That is a position earned by merit alone.

adastra22 2y ago

I think you are agreeing with the poster you are responding to, right? Bezos is the equivalent of an Olympic athlete: a combination of innate talent as well as opportunity.

stonemetal12 2y ago
More or less. Money provides an environment where high achievement becomes possible, it isn't just start up funds.