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Is success tied to having rich parents?

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Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#111

Post by SyzygistSix »

What I have seen is that kids whose parents own their own business or are entrepreneurial have a very different set of influences when growing up compared to kids whose parents were employees. It's not just the most wealthy that get this.

And kids whose parents and larger social circle are more bohemian or worldly have the same advantage in that they learn that there are more opportunities that one just doesn't see of your parents and relatives were all employees in middle America. The internet has helped somewhat but as an example, the idea that one can just make their own movies and go to film school wasn't even on my radar growing up in the 80s.

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#112

Post by DoreenMichele »

jjj123 wrote: post #108
DoreenMichele wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago, I saw a study that said that there is as much child neglect and drug abuse in rich neighborhoods as in ghettos. Good parents tend to be middle class because, yes, you need to be able to feed the kids adequately etc but you also need to actually spend time with the kids and care about them. Money can't buy you love.

It can’t buy love, but it can buy food security, shelter, medical care, and decent schooling. I’m not saying growing up rich is always easy, but the point is it’s _more likely_ to be easy than if you’re poor.

Cher once said "I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better."

Certainly, all other things being equal, it's generally better to have more resources. But life isn't quite that simple and sometimes the price involved in successfully pursuing money involves a human cost.

If you can have lots of money and also have time for the children and also are a decent person, etc, cool. Some people pull that off.

And some people don't.

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#113

Post by SyzygistSix »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #25
Wiseacre wrote: post #12

Pointing out things like privilege tends to be seen as a sore loser mentality, regardless of truth. Sore losers have no place in hustle culture.

> Sore losers have no place in hustle culture. "Hustle culture" is what happens when "pulling your bootstraps" is not edgy enough.

No, it is a set of behaviors and understanding that all successful business owners and self-employed people have, regardless if they are rich or not.

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#114

Post by bradlys »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #102
jccalhoun wrote: post #32

This is the thing that drives me crazy. The true rags to riches stories are incredibly rare. In the USA we love the stories about the person that came from nothing and the self-made millionaire but in the vast majority of cases if you look at the person's history you will see they grew up in at least an upper middle class family. This applies to a lot of actors and musicians as well. After all, most of us couldn't af…

For something that is "incredibly rare", I sure seem to know an enormous number of people that managed to bootstrap their way out of real poverty and into real wealth. At least a dozen. It isn't that exceptional, you are overfitting on having heard of them; the vast, vast majority are never going to be written about nor advertise the fact. In many contexts, it is beneficial to pretend like you had an upper-middle cla…

Yet I know none and have lived in SV for the last 7 years. Every person I’ve met has come from a middle class family at the least. And an educated one - if not high earning as well. Anyone who has significant wealth is from a privileged background or at the least married into one.

I’m always from the poorest background, least educated, etc. I’ve yet to meet anyone who gets close to where I was. I don’t even feel like I truly was that bad off but then again - I’ve seen how low it goes and most people in SV cannot even comprehend what the bottom looks like in the US.

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#115

Post by bradlys »

abhaynayar wrote: post #103
Entwickler wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with a lot of this. On the flip side, there's the sayings "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times." and "Wealth does not last beyond three generations". I've anecdotally seen this where kids from rich parents take a lot of their wealth for granted and don't understand fully what it takes to build-up and retain wealth for the…

I've always had a gripe with the "Hard times..." saying, because in reality, hard times just crush people. The few people that survive hard times are of course exceptionally strong or lucky, but they are exceptions. I can say through my personal experience since I've worked in Switzerland and India: Just because India is having a harder time, doesn't mean we are stronger people, quite the contrary. I don't think good…

Agree. The hard times thing is about survivor bias. In reality - hard times create many broken men who never escape the shackles they were born into. I know this because of where I grew up - very few who encountered difficulty ever truly escape or become strong. Most that I know are weak and in a bad cycle. Even the ones who were crowned as the smartest end up working the front counter at a pizza shop. It’s only the ones who had some wealth behind them (anomalies in the town) that were able to truly get out.

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#116

Post by vxnul »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #38

Absolutely, as an orphan with many different ideas and no safety net I was frequently put in places where I should have been a co-founder since I was technical and the idea was mine, but basically until I was 29 I had no leverage because I had to have income (and health insurance, I was born with a couple heart defects.) I eventually co-founded a company with two others and it went well, but after exiting I am still…

Absolutely, as an orphan with many different ideas and no safety net I was frequently put in places where I should have been a co-founder since I was technical and the idea was mine, but basically until I was 29 I had no leverage because I had to have income (and health insurance, I was born with a couple heart defects.)

It sucks, and I'm sorry that you had this experience. That's basically how it works. The people who get the good jobs are the people who don't need jobs at all. The people who need jobs get the lousy ones that lead nowhere but more lousy jobs, and it is this way because the owning class can threaten us with starvation and homelessness into taking whatever terms they offer.

What is truly weird is that, if you advocate (I don't, and I'm not) for tearing down the capital-owning class using indiscriminate and total violence--and, just to be clear, I consider "indiscriminate, total violence" a terrible outcome, almost as bad as letting the bourgeoisie continue to win--you'll probably end up in jail, even in the US where they claim to love "freedom of speech"... but, at the same time, rich people can use survival pressures (threat of starvation, homelessness, and criminal medical negligence) and that's just taken as how the world works. To advocate for a final revolution against the bourgeoisie that might take 100,000 lives is a crime; to advocate (or even lobby!) against "socialized medicine" and kill far more people is legal.

It's weird how certain types of violence fade into the background while others are considered severe and deviant, to the point of receiving international scorn and attention. Worker-initiated worksite violence is a bad thing, no doubt--I am staunchy against it, since other workers, often innocents, are invariably the victims--but compared to the millions that have been killed by the US health insurance system, it's not newsworthy at all. It's just the Right is very skilled at using criminal anecdata to convince people the world that the poor are far more dangerous (and the rich, less so) than they actually are.

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#117

Post by vxnul »

moralestapia wrote: post #88
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, and obviously my history and K1's can make the case for a whole slew of other traits besides that one. By "who you are" do you mean a persons intrinsic traits? I think the fact that "who you are" in these cases implicitly includes a persons network, access to capital and other _extrinsic_ traits should be spoken aloud and acknowledged. There are a lot of poor, smart kids who feel _less than_ as a result. A tra…

By who you are I meant whether you come from a rich and privileged family or not. >I think the fact that "who you are" in these cases implicitly includes a persons network [...] Yes, you're right, in some sense a person with a good pedigree is bringing these implicit connections to the table, and that has value, for sure. But then that leaves outside the other 90% of people who do not pass that litmus test. And then,…

[dead]

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#118

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

I think about this regularly. Being poor is more than not having material wealth. Apple's Steve Jobs had a period of time where he had no money. But he was never poor. He had no money by choice. He knew what to do to live a comfortable life any time he wanted. But there are people that will always be poor no matter how hard they try. They just don't know how to get ahead. I think that is due to what they learned from their family. A successful family is able to teach their members how to be successful in life even if money is never exchanged. Having the right family that can teach how to be successful even if it's just by example is a great advantage.

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#119

Post by lamontcg »

jasonkester wrote: post #28

If you’re looking for an excuse to not start a business, you can’t get better than this. The game is rigged. Thus you would be a fool to try. Problem solved. If, however, you kinda like the idea of running your own business, it’s worth knowing that you do not in fact need rich parents or any of the other prerequisites that non-entrepreneurs think are required. Ask around here and you’ll find plenty of us. (And, of co…

There has to be a name for this fallacy.

The fact that applying it to any one individual is the wrong mentality doesn't mean that at the level of broader society it isn't entirely correct.

Its the difference between sociological statistics and life advice.

Re: Is success tied to having rich parents?

#120

Post by inglor_cz »

bradlys wrote: post #114
jandrewrogers wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For something that is "incredibly rare", I sure seem to know an enormous number of people that managed to bootstrap their way out of real poverty and into real wealth. At least a dozen. It isn't that exceptional, you are overfitting on having heard of them; the vast, vast majority are never going to be written about nor advertise the fact. In many contexts, it is beneficial to pretend like you had an upper-middle cla…

Yet I know none and have lived in SV for the last 7 years. Every person I’ve met has come from a middle class family at the least. And an educated one - if not high earning as well. Anyone who has significant wealth is from a privileged background or at the least married into one. I’m always from the poorest background, least educated, etc. I’ve yet to meet anyone who gets close to where I was. I don’t even feel like…

Aren't there a lot of immigrants from poorer countries in California?
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