https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/policy-news-views/statement...
There's also the donut king: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25241898
I'm not trying to just pick rare counter examples, but I'm skeptical of the claim that there's little demographic distance or the implication that it's a prerequisite. One of the reasons people like the US is an immigrant can come here and they themselves (or their children) can become the richest person in the world (or the vice president).
I'd agree there's a randomness element, but it's less lottery and more placing bets with odds that are hard to determine. Some people have better initial odds, but that's only one part of it.
If anything - I'd hypothesize that extreme outliers share something other personality trait more relevant than demographics, willingness to take huge risks. You could argue that someone who has more of a safety net is in a better position to do so, but someone who has nothing to lose may also find the tradeoff easier. It's possible that most people in a relatively comfortable position would be less likely to take the big kind of risks that outlier payoffs require (I'd guess this is one reason why we have few people like Elon Musk).
People talk about America as a meritocracy yet, the US has had vastly more presidents closely related to previous presidents than say Black, Hispanic, and or Female presidents combined. That’s to put it bluntly not he outcome of random chance even if you’re limiting things to just white men it’s obvious something else is involved.
https://www.factmonster.com/us/government/executive-branch/u...
As I said, I agree in the common case - I just see people generalize and include in their examples people that contradict them (Bezos, arguably Musk too).
Extreme outliers are often outliers in more ways than one.
I think "demographic distance" makes sense if you think of it in terms of "Coming from a family of at least moderate wealth". My family was pretty poor, and there's a lot they couldn't teach me about money because they just had no idea. Plus, my whole life I've had to set aside $X per month to keep the family afloat, so it's made it a lot harder to dink around with startups that aren't going so well.
I don't think I can get as rich as Bill Gates myself, but I'll bet I can get as rich as his dad, and give my kids a shot at becoming mega-billionaires
Speaking of breaking away from the pack, that brings us to the ultra-rich. AFAICT what pg has shown is not that building wealth alone is a path to riches (nor was that his intent AFAICT). The way to become ultra rich is to be one of the "lottery winners" among a cohort of relatively minor wealth creators. Playing the lottery is just as essential as building wealth, just as with literal lottery winners. The main difference is that this lottery isn't entirely random. Even among those who make it into the first round (founders), some players have certain innate advantages over others in the second. There's little demographic distance between Gates, Ellison, Bezos, and Musk - and Graham, for that matter. It's no accident. If you want to become seriously rich, it helps if you can afford to ride out risks - or even actual losses - that would force others out of the race.