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On top of my mind, I don't think Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison came from families with money. Give me two billionaires I and you will see they don't have much i

On top of my mind, I don't think Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison came from families with money. Give me two billionaires I and you will see they don't have much in common except tenacity, willpower and seeing the world as something they can influence. I don't think you can learn a lot in analyzing successes, because there are so many different paths to success and chance plays a huge part. Also, IMHO success is more about what you don't do than what you do. But sure helps write articles which drive traffic.

burnte 11y ago
> I don't think Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison came from families with money. Doesn't mean anything. Most bombs aren't nuclear bombs, that doesn't mean there are no nuclear bombs. The fact that a handful of billionaires who were in the IT industry during its formative moments and getting a ground floor opportunity doesn't mean lots on entrepreneurs aren't coming from wealthy families.
- adventured 11y ago
  Forbes has found US billionaires are increasingly coming from middle to lower-upper classes, and are not inheriting their wealth. [1] [2] It's trivially easy to come up with dozens of examples of people that came from average or poor backgrounds and became billionaires in the last 50 years. Soros, Oprah, Spielberg, Harold Simmons, Howard Schultz, George Lucas, Carl Icahn, Do Won Chang, Bob Parsons, Stephen Bisciotti, Henry Samueli, Jan Koum, J.R. Simplot, Kirk Kerkorian, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Paul Allen, Leon Charney, Mark Cuban, Carl Lindner, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Shahid Khan, George Joseph, Jack Dorsey, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson, Phil Knight, Ken Langone, Jack Dangermond, Elon Musk, Ken Langone, Harold Hamm, David Murdock, John Malone, Gordon Moore, Thomas Peterffy, Marc Andreessen, Michael Jordan, Alec Gores, Ralph Lauren, John Paul DeJoria, Kenny Troutt, Alan Gerry, Evan Williams - this list keeps going. http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/03/there-are-more-self-made-billionaires-in-the-forbes-400-than-ever-before/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/03/there-a... "We crunched the data from our most recent Forbes 400 and discovered that more than 94% of the tech billionaires created their fortunes themselves." 40% of those tech billionaires came from a lower class background. In real estate it's nearly 50%. [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/06/self-made-billionaires-thrive-in-silicon-valley-and-wall-street-as-manufacturing-suffers/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/06/self-ma...
  - burnte 11y ago
    > It's trivially easy to come up with dozens of examples It's always easy to come up with small numbers of examples that don't fit a rule, that doesn't disprove a rule, especially when the rule is a generalization and not an absolute. However, if the data says it's actually well over half, THAT disproves the rule, and is a much better way of stating the rule is untrue.
    - shin_lao 11y ago
      Actually one single counter-example can be enough to disprove a rule. What doesn't work is using an example to prove a rule.
sneak 11y ago
Steve Jobs grew up in Los Altos, with two parents who went to court to adopt him, and received their adopted son only after promising that he would attend university. That's a lot more stability and safety net than most people have.

burnte 11y ago

> I don't think Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison came from families with money. Doesn't mean anything. Most bombs aren't nuclear bombs, that doesn't mean there are no nuclear bombs. The fact that a handful of billionaires who were in the IT industry during its formative moments and getting a ground floor opportunity doesn't mean lots on entrepreneurs aren't coming from wealthy families.

adventured 11y ago
Forbes has found US billionaires are increasingly coming from middle to lower-upper classes, and are not inheriting their wealth. [1] [2] It's trivially easy to come up with dozens of examples of people that came from average or poor backgrounds and became billionaires in the last 50 years. Soros, Oprah, Spielberg, Harold Simmons, Howard Schultz, George Lucas, Carl Icahn, Do Won Chang, Bob Parsons, Stephen Bisciotti, Henry Samueli, Jan Koum, J.R. Simplot, Kirk Kerkorian, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Paul Allen, Leon Charney, Mark Cuban, Carl Lindner, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Shahid Khan, George Joseph, Jack Dorsey, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson, Phil Knight, Ken Langone, Jack Dangermond, Elon Musk, Ken Langone, Harold Hamm, David Murdock, John Malone, Gordon Moore, Thomas Peterffy, Marc Andreessen, Michael Jordan, Alec Gores, Ralph Lauren, John Paul DeJoria, Kenny Troutt, Alan Gerry, Evan Williams - this list keeps going. http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/03/there-are-more-self-made-billionaires-in-the-forbes-400-than-ever-before/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/03/there-a... "We crunched the data from our most recent Forbes 400 and discovered that more than 94% of the tech billionaires created their fortunes themselves." 40% of those tech billionaires came from a lower class background. In real estate it's nearly 50%. [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/06/self-made-billionaires-thrive-in-silicon-valley-and-wall-street-as-manufacturing-suffers/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/06/self-ma...
- burnte 11y ago
  > It's trivially easy to come up with dozens of examples It's always easy to come up with small numbers of examples that don't fit a rule, that doesn't disprove a rule, especially when the rule is a generalization and not an absolute. However, if the data says it's actually well over half, THAT disproves the rule, and is a much better way of stating the rule is untrue.
  - shin_lao 11y ago
    Actually one single counter-example can be enough to disprove a rule. What doesn't work is using an example to prove a rule.

sneak 11y ago

Steve Jobs grew up in Los Altos, with two parents who went to court to adopt him, and received their adopted son only after promising that he would attend university. That's a lot more stability and safety net than most people have.