> When I look at that list, Jeff Bezos is #1. The first woman on the list is at #10 and inherited her wealth. Are you looking at a different list?

I think the comment does refer to Jeff Bezos. Here is the relevant section from Wikipedia:

"At the time of his birth, his mother was a 17-year-old high school student and his father was 19.[17] After completing high school despite challenging conditions, Jacklyn attended night school while bringing baby Jeff along.[18]"

IMO a 17 year old attending night school is pretty low in terms of economic status.

Also I am sure there are other cases but I know about #17 (Mukesh Ambani) and his father was a petrol bunk attendant - pretty low down even by Indian standards.

Ok so Bezos was born in a low quintile, but then jumped when his mom married a wealthy person when he was 4. He effectively had the same advantages of a rich person through his adopted father's success.

His father was a Cuban refugee who came to the US alone as a 16-year old.

Ok but he was wealthy when Bezos was a child. The point is, for all intents and purposes, Bezos grew up wealthy and had the support of a wealthy family when he went out on his own. He famously got a "small" $250,000 investment from his parents to start Amazon.

For reference, the people mentioned are #1 Jeff Bezos, #7 Larry Ellison, #9 Sergey Brin, #13 Mukesh Ambani, and #18 Zhong Shanshan.

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhong_Shanshan "He dropped out of elementary school during the Cultural Revolution and found work in construction."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Jiayin "Xu Jiayin was born to a rural family in Jutaigang Village, ... His father is a retired soldier who participated in the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s and 1940s. After the establishment of the Communist State, he became a warehouseman in his home-village. Xu's mother died of sepsis when he was 8 months old. He was raised by his paternal grandmother. After high school, he worked in a cement product factory for a few days and then worked for two years at home."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Yinglin "Qin was born in 1965 in Hexi Village... He grew up in poverty.

In 1982, when Qin was in high school, his father saved up money and bought 20 pigs, but all but one died. This motivated Qin to study pig farming at university, so that he could help people in his village earn money raising pigs."

I'm not sure billionaires like Eric Yuan ("collected construction scraps to recycle copper for cash"), Jay Chaudhry ("Chaudhry was born in Panoh, a Himalayan village without running water"), Jan Koum ("When he was living on welfare, Jan Koum's family collected food stamps a couple of blocks"), Isaac Perlmutter ("He emigrated to America, arriving in New York City with only $250"), and Romesh Wadhwani ("He contracted polio at age of 2") count as "super rich in your own country" that would thus "have a lot of opportunity".

Mukesh Ambani's dad was NOT lower quintile by any standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhirubhai_Ambani

The comment that started this thread discussed people who > started life in the bottom quintile

At the time of Mukesh Ambani's birth, his father was in Aden colony (present-day Yemen). A year later, he supposedly left:

> The rise of Ambani began in 1958 when he gave up his clerical job in Aden and moved back to Mumbai with fifty thousand rupees in his pocket. https://knappily.com/onthisday/dhirubhai-ambani-death-legacy...

If the claim is to be believed, then 50000 rupees of wealth is probably the lowest quintile in the United States (at the time).

Of course, Dhirubhai Ambani is probably a better example himself, but he is dead.