The optimal approach for most is probably to do their level best at their day job and work on what they want to in their spare time. And perhaps, with luck and time, the knowledge and skills developed in the spare time can be leveraged to put bread on the table.
The people going for prestigious institutions may actually need a job and and are optimizing for the best possible outcome.
The comparison in this context was that Queen's has a reputation for attracting status-seeking people banking on a management consulting career path.
I know the word "privilege" is anathema here, but it applies, even if neither his biological nor adoptive parents were necessarily rolling in dough.
He had a wonder years middle class life.
>He had a wonder years middle class life.
In the middle of the tech revolution's ground zero. In fact, being on a lower rung of the upper-middle class ladder might have been protective, in that he had access, but not too much access. In other words, enough resources (that most Americans of the time did not have) to get off the ground, without being tracked into less risky, more conventional, still lucrative work.
In America, there's the whole mythos of the rags-to-riches American dream. Some people whose story is really riches-to-more-riches present their success as the former.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-abou...
Doesn't that mean you should be the one checking?
This is from game of thrones. Also, former FL Sheriff Scott Israel used that quote in a courtroom after a judge had called him negligent.
It's also not originally from thrones. It goes back to Aesop. Thanks for playing though.
The lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the mouse.
All of the people cited in the article (Gates, Musk, Jobs) eschewed "prestige institutions" and worked on what they wanted to work on.
They're incidentally famous because of their success in other areas.
The Kardashians are famous for being famous.
Which do you really want?