Comment by xyzelement
15 hours ago
I would extend your thinking to any well intentioned folks being very capable of having their "thinking" affected.
For example poor people who have never thought about rising out of it - eg about 50% of kids in my Brooklyn public highschool had parents who didn't give a shit if the kids studied or not. Completely oblivious to how the world works - meanwhile the other 50% wa immigrants who pushed their kids and those kids are now in the 1%.
In general I think what's more telling than your level is your journey. Someone born rich maybe mirrors what you described (I don't know people like that) but the few centi-millionaires and billionaires I "know" (ie worked for and dealt with in that context) have encountered plenty of "no".
When you are building a company, you are going to get a lot of no. No I won't buy, no I won't work for you, no I won't invest in you. In fact I would say a universal attribute of someone who has "made it" is having ample of experience getting "no" and dealing with that fact property. That's true even like at the level that plenty oh HN readers are - a successful faang employee and the like.
For what its worth - I generally find that orienting to what some other group is like "rich people are like x etc" is a tell-tale of not focusing on what's within ones sphere of control and knew life. Any brain cell I spend fantasizing about someone else's imagined behavior is a brain cell not dedicated to engaging soberly with my own reality.
I obviously don't have numbers on this, but I strongly doubt there's a poor person on this planet who's never thought about "rising" out of it. That's the dream the lottery sells, that's why so many kids want to be basketball stars / celebrities / influencers, etc.
My personal experience is that the required difficulties of my life have decreased in direct proportion to my income, leaving mainly the self-imposed difficulties. It's not hard to extrapolate that line a little further to billionaires.
We're taking about different things. To continue my example. A nyc public School student is a 34k/ year investment for the city.
De facto some parents look at that as a gift and "force" their kids to take advantage of it. That's why the valedictorian etc is usually an immigrant kid not a rich"native" kid.
Meanwhile plenty of parents seemingly have never considered the opportunity in front of them. Content to let their kids not study and do stupid crime.
To say it simply: not everyone values education the same degree - or a all. That's all I am saying here - you'd think a poor family would grab to the opportunity to rise out through education but it's obvious that for many many many people this has never crossed their mind. If you had not encountered this in your own life I find that odd.