This is true. It matters much more who you are than what you bring to the table (unless you're bringing in something spectacular).

By "who you are" do you mean a persons intrinsic traits?

I think the fact that "who you are" in these cases implicitly includes a persons network, access to capital and other _extrinsic_ traits should be spoken aloud and acknowledged.

There are a lot of poor, smart kids who feel _less than_ as a result.

A trait I have that is hard to present is that for every dollar invested in me the ROI has been a minimum of 25x, those numbers start at 15 when I dropped out of HS to pay my families rent (with an "illegal" w2 smb network admin job I turned into a coding/marketing automation job) because of my mothers cancer diagnosis.

Many of us end up being out leveraged early on and our map to success takes far more personal torque and grit than others born into more connected and wealthier circumstances.

>I think the fact that "who you are" in these cases implicitly includes a persons network [...]

Yes, you're right, in some sense a person with a good pedigree is bringing these implicit connections to the table, and that has value, for sure. But then that leaves outside the other 90% of people who do not pass that litmus test.

And then, some bad patterns emerge, like this one pointed out by our beloved Michael O. Church: https://twitter.com/MichaelOChurch/status/149157622891411456...

My luck of course is that my parents were brilliant observers and educators (just lacked any financial background.) Just unplugged from material humanity due to their respective upbringing. Which was lovely, and in many ways very wholesome, but killed them and devastated my family in the end, I still miss them dearly.

Can confirm the Michael O'Church quote.

Long before I had financial security I learned to code switch, to present that demurring, almost embarrassed and indifferent attitude towards money, if you met me in person I can come across as a pretty standard tech bro from a wealthy background. It helps immensely with the leverage imbalance, to appear as an almost gadfly, but it's all very complicated and there are trade offs and unlearned implicit things that I don't have an intuitive grasp on.

I don't really talk about poverty and climbing out of it except on HN, it's usually not personally fruitful and not part of my daily headspace. Everything is smoother when you focus on the similarities of your conversation partners and commonalities. We are all one humanity after all, even if not everyone grasps the depth of that truth.

Instead, he was gunned down for pointing out the nonexistence of meritocracy in the startup world. He certainly wasn't the first to figure it out, and he wasn't the first to say it, but he was for whatever reason the one who turned it into common knowledge.

I wonder where he is now and I hope his book (Farisa's Crossing, is it called?) lives up to the hype.

It sucks, and I'm sorry that you had this experience. That's basically how it works. The people who get the good jobs are the people who don't need jobs at all. The people who need jobs get the lousy ones that lead nowhere but more lousy jobs, and it is this way because the owning class can threaten us with starvation and homelessness into taking whatever terms they offer.

What is truly weird is that, if you advocate (I don't, and I'm not) for tearing down the capital-owning class using indiscriminate and total violence--and, just to be clear, I consider "indiscriminate, total violence" a terrible outcome, almost as bad as letting the bourgeoisie continue to win--you'll probably end up in jail, even in the US where they claim to love "freedom of speech"... but, at the same time, rich people can use survival pressures (threat of starvation, homelessness, and criminal medical negligence) and that's just taken as how the world works. To advocate for a final revolution against the bourgeoisie that might take 100,000 lives is a crime; to advocate (or even lobby!) against "socialized medicine" and kill far more people is legal.

It's weird how certain types of violence fade into the background while others are considered severe and deviant, to the point of receiving international scorn and attention. Worker-initiated worksite violence is a bad thing, no doubt--I am staunchy against it, since other workers, often innocents, are invariably the victims--but compared to the millions that have been killed by the US health insurance system, it's not newsworthy at all. It's just the Right is very skilled at using criminal anecdata to convince people the world that the poor are far more dangerous (and the rich, less so) than they actually are.

I like that HN is a place to discuss ideas with other nerds, be inquisitive, share experiences and perspectives in a mind expanding way, tech and peaceful community have both helped me immensely in tangible ways. I want to widen the road behind me as much as I can.

I hope you can appreciate my personal perspective, I've not found many places online where outrage and strong speech isn't the dominant mode of interaction. Thanks.

Success!!!

> but after exiting I am still not plugged into VC.

Isn’t this moving the goal posts ?

Vitalik Buterin is extremely successful. It appears he has never had to worry about finances, even as an extreme outlier for my cohort I still have to mind my p's and q's and worry about financial decisions.

I am successful for my impoverished cohort. At one point it looked like I would hit financial escape velocity where I could essentially retire, which of course would just have gotten me to Vitalik's childhood starting point.

The ability to sit and work on a moonshot for an indefinite period of time, or follow new trends at my leisure, follow a hunch, passion, what have you, without worrying about a safety net?

No, never had that. What he had in his childhood I still to this day do not have as an adult that represents the top %1 of my cohort. Even with my %1 outlier level of "success attributes", escaping the well of gravity costs a lot. In terms of real cumulative stress, health outcomes, missed opportunities, etc. just calculating using a simple base rate I would have been far better off being born into the upper middle class.

I know many individuals who are far less driven, far less creative, people who have generated far less wealth, who had childhoods and young adulthoods well into their late 20's who are still financially ahead of me.

Children/People love to have mastery and create and be recognized, children are mostly born curious, a hungry belly helps no one achieve greatness, we celebrate and immortalize the improbable stories whose success effectively represent _achievement statistical noise_ and we should be honest about that I think.

Extremely successful

> At one point it looked like I would hit financial escape velocity where I could essentially retire, which of course would just have gotten me to Vitalik's childhood starting point.

You have more control over the assets than a child - it was not their money

Maybe you are supposed to be Vitalik’s parent instead of Vitalik

Any ideas why?