As an analyst who's read through various biographies and the resumes of people in high power positions, you've generally already lost out if you can't list on yours (subtly or not so subtly): "have rich, educated, well connected parents, and use those connections to land your first few jobs or investments".

I suppose there's some marginal value in learning that you should talk the talk and walk the walk to better fit into that culture (and that will open up some opportunities for you), but merit is not how 90%+ of the world works...

I quite disagree. It's not the "position" these give you, but the mind set. The mind set is what differentiates highly successful. I know quite a lot of people who are multi-millionares, don't have to work - and came from very middle class positions. I once met a billionaire who said "Anyone can be homeless, or rich beyond their dreams. It's their mindset, actions, and opportunities that they seize to set themselves apart. Do what everyone else does, to end up no better"

The "mindset" you're talking about is parent's second part of the sentence, "...and use those connections to land your first few jobs or investments."

I mean - that does happen. I personally know of enough middle class kids for whom none of that is true. They just worked incredibly hard, and didn't give up when people normally do, including not being paid for many years while living at home with a family. Sometimes what people attribute to connections or privelege, is a lot of behind the scenes sacrifice, and fortitude, and patience.

This line of thinking is only valid if the mindset causes success. It seems far more likely that success causes the mindset.

> of people whose job you’d like to have and figure out how they got it.

I would extend this a bit. This could be people you worked with, not necessary to be any famous people with a published biography. Check their profile, see what kind of training, education, and jobs they had will help you understanding how get to where they are at.

Everyone on linkedin has a biography.

I'm sure there are many people from humble beginnings that have biographies. However, they often grew up in different times. There might be some takeaways from their story, but I don't think you can reverse engineer their success path. On the other side of that, I like the quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, "The harder I work, the more luck I have." Combine that with "Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity," and I think we are on our way to something.

> Find the biographies of people whose job you’d like to have and figure out how they got it. You can effectively reverse engineer their career path.

LinkedIn provides a biography of sorts for millions of professionals. Do a little Googling and possibly even reach out to some people and you can figure out how just about anyone got to where they are today.

This. I've reverse engineered not only my career but other huge parts of my life from profiles on hacker news.

If ones believes success comes from privilege, one will never be successful.

I actually don't believe that, but I find it very dubious that you can simply reverse-engineer someone else's career path.

Of course you can reverse the career at a high level. But it doesn't mean someone else would have the same outcomes - even if following the same steps. Every person's life is filled with a unique, dynamic range of possibilities, opportunities, hardships, challenges, obstacles. Some "success" (however defined), can be much easier for some - and much more difficult for others. Those for which it is difficult can either have the patience, fortitude, vision, cognitive ability to make weighted probability deicision, and tenacity to get there, or not - sometimes sacrificing for years or decades.

Someone without "wealth" may easily form friendships, have a great family, and fulfillment there. A "wealthy" person may be great at creating wealth, but poor at creating fulfillment.