The point being made though is that business success is greatly influenced by existing wealth, since it gives you the luxury of being able to absorb the costs and risks involved. People like to give a few rare exceptions to the rule as somehow evidence that this isn't true.

The best analogy I've seen is that starting a business is like playing a game at a carnival. The more tickets you buy, the more attempts you have to win the prize. Meanwhile most folks are the carnival workers, never being able to get a chance to play the game in the first place.

I can also make the counterargument that people who grew up in hardship are more likely to become relentless businessmen. Most of the top richest people in America are immigrants.

Most people don’t start a business because they tell themselves that it won’t work. It’s the hard truth that most people don’t want to hear.

If you read about most founders they don’t become rich due to luck or background or whatever. No most of the time they set themselves a goal and then do EVERYTHING to get there. They don’t care whether their parents had money or not. Or whether the market timing is right. They just do whatever they need to do.

Damn it was that easy to obviate financial obligations? Guess the bank also won't care if we stop paying our mortgages?

To give credit to your position, over in Europe they've a generous welfare state yet very few successful startups so there's definitely a huge grindset factor but you're still cashing in on incredible luck or a comfortable economic position to be able to try enough times to score.

This is why the standard issue techbro advice from semi-wealthy "hustlers" who failed upwards on the backs of a few H1B 'founding' engineers is not actionable, I can at least respect the ones who don't bother with the facade.

> Most of the top richest people in America are immigrants.

....because there isn't enough wealth where they're from to absorb a lot of failures.

Hence they come to the land of opportunity where there are gamblers with money to gamble.

Many of the richest people also come from places where they COULD afford to fail. Let's be honest, looking at patterns to become wildly wealthy is all survivorship bias, although, if you're well off to begin with, you're more likely to actually survive, and that makes you more willing to give it a shot.

There are a lot more people with the idea of making money than there are people making money.

Also, there are a lot more poor people than startup founders.

Hm, there must be more to it.

Genuine question: what role did testosterone (added) play in Schwarzenegger’s outsized ambition?