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It's frustrating, not a single critique I've seen of PG's essay (including this one) seem to understand what he is actually saying. It's time to start considering that either PG made his point poorly, or that maybe you're the one that didn't understand it. I don't know what other reasonable options there are.
The other possibility is people see what they want to see.
It's certainly not the first time I've thought about this topic, but for whatever reason, the OP and much of the discussion is resonating very deeply for me (and apparently for a lot of folks). IMHO, this is some of the most productive discussion about privilege and opportunity that's ever appeared on the internet; for the most part, this discussion has avoided the sort of aggravated competition (i.e. pissing contests) and judgements that generally arise out of internet discussions of privilege. In place of those nastier (albeit very human) responses, this thread is full of empathy, support, and offers of help.
I'm very proud of our little community here today.
I'm planning on writing a more detailed post in a few days after collecting my thoughts a bit more, but I'd like to share some half-formed ideas which this post has inspired (comments and criticisms are very welcome!):
1) Part of what's awesome about this discussion is that it seems to have enabled a bit of ad-hoc group therapy. I think it's very helpful for folks who are facing these hurdles to realize they are not alone; while everyone's situation is unique, it's great that people have been acknowledging similarities in their stories, rather than arguing about the differences. We should try to do more of this (with other contentious topics as well)!
2) As several people have suggested, I believe that collecting these stories could potentially help a lot of people. I'm totally down to build and host a site towards that end - would anyone be interested in sharing their stories in that sort of venue?
3) While the specific issues that people have had to deal with are different, there seems to be some common 'flavors' that many have experienced: a) Socio-economic disparity causing an aversion to risk later in life b) Lack of confidence in oneself which adds an additional handicap compared to more self-confident people, likely resulting in missed opportunities (you can't win if you don't play vs you can't lose if you don't play); impostor syndrome. c) Lack of connections, again likely resulting in missed opportunities and increased difficulty in building new things/finding a job/etc. d) Disparity in access to knowledge that greatly improves chances of success (e.g. importance of SAT scores to college admissions; efficient resource management; interview skills)
Improving the situation in (a) seems to be what the world at large is most interested in. Unfortunately, it's a difficult, heavily politicized, and therefore divisive issue. By contrast (b), (c), and (d) seem like problems that we could really improve, at least within our own community.
For example, someone might have a harder time getting the type of (tech) job that they want due to a lack of personal connections (it can be really hard to get your foot in the door), however, it's likely that the personal connections they need are actually visiting this site every day. While we obviously can't just start providing references for total strangers, how much effort would it be to spend a few hours corresponding with someone and vetting their skills to see if you feel comfortable in recommending them? (I'll put my money where my mouth is on this one - if anyone feels like they'd be a good fit at Cloudera, let's talk! EDIT: just to be clear, I don't really have any hiring authority, but I'm happy to talk to anyone, and potentially help with a recommendation)
Likewise, it seems that (b) could be improved for a lot of people with simple communication - impostor syndrome is very common in tech, so I assume that a lot of people here have advice on the subject, or just an empathetic/sympathetic ear.
Regarding (d), this type of information is all likely available already on the internet, but perhaps it could be more usefully compiled for this particular case, minimizing the number of unknown unknowns? What about a thread (like "Who's Hiring") listing offers for mentorship ("Who Needs a Mentor?") ?
I dunno, am I just being overly optimistic here? It seems to me there's a lot of low-hanging fruit here, if some of us are willing to dedicate a bit of time to it.
More ideas? Criticisms?
tldr; In spite of motivation, talent and hard work; financial situation and immigration (in my case) play a big role in your entrepreneurship journey. Excellent article by the writer. Apologies for the long post, however hope it is helpful for someone in similar situation. I can relate to many things that he has faced and feel incredibly lucky to not have faced some things that he had to. I grew up in a small town in…
I had a similar experience starting life with opportunity debt. Single parent family whose mother had no high school education. Have ADD and dyslexia, moved around a lot with a good part my life in subsidized housing, and never graduated from high school. No one teaches you the basics, so that when you do start coming into your own and taking control of your own life you are so incredibly behind your peers socially,…
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I'm a she, btw.
Off-topic, but I wanted to say that I really appreciate this comment/clarification - the matter-of-fact tone makes the point without getting anyone's back up, which (IMHO) is exactly the right way to reach hearts and minds. I'm pretty bad about defaulting to masculine pronouns myself, and this simple exchange has done a lot to motivate me to break that habit (I would have also assumed your gender to be male, and woul…
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> ...when has it ever been socially cool to literally be rural "trailer trash" in America? You're the one calling it trailer trash. Even educated poor people often speak in a more genuine and direct way than elite people do. It may sound funny to a fancy person but that doesn't make it trash. > ...no one checks your papers at the door. Yes, they do. Every job, startup accelerator, and VC checks your background. Elite…
> Every job, startup accelerator, and VC checks your background. They check your education, not your family background. Nobody has a clue whether your parents were middle class or lower income.
Here is one instance where that powerful way of thinking runs head on into a stone wall. He said "few successful founders grew up desperately poor" and moved on. Succinct. yes, but not powerful. This piece took a couple thousand words to say the same one succinct thing that PG said, and nails it in terms of the empathy it generates and the power with which it communicates. While PGs writing in this issue comes out as aspie. This is the lesson he needs to take from that latest article and the Internet's reaction, and not that “Life is short” and totally miss the point.
Narrativity and Authenticity and Poetry and Verbosity is power! (when dealing with humans).
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A rich person can throw money at this problem or at least has the financial and temporal capacity to research it and gain an academic understanding. I know the conventional wisdom is to build something that you would use yourself, but towards the later stages of most b2b companies--especially ones that deal with enterprise customers--the customer is just as alien to anyone as poor people are to you. This is such a ti…
Seriously. "I am rich so I don't know how to make a vehicle to make even more money" is so transformatively different from "I grew up without enough opportunities to know how to function in polite (white) society" that my jaw bunched reading it. This industry makes me profoundly sad sometimes. Often.
I found myself nodding along the whole article. First, let me say that I am happy where I ended up. I'm successful, enjoy my work, and when I compare my personal income with our family income when I was growing up, it is an absurd multiple. We were a very poor family in a poor part of the South. I went to a top-10 small private university on a full ride, felt completely alienated and never quite figured out how to fu…
I've known deca-millionaire trust fund kids who ended up broke (or dead). I've known immigrants who started with nothing and ended up fantastically independently wealthy. And the vast, vast majority of people who settle somewhere near the middle. What nobody teaches you is: it's all about luck. Below that, the fine print: the harder you work and the more you sacrifice, the luckier you will get. ''If only'' works both…