Steve Jobs was in the right place at the right time. He came of age at a time when few people had access to the basic prerequisite for learning to program, i.e. a computer. and there was a great potential market for home computing. So the supply of programmers was low, but the demand for software was high.
Even if you have the skill, you need the right connections and the capital to start your business. And if you get that, there’s still a huge chance that the venture capitalist who funds you will replace you once your business takes off.
The bottom-line is we need to stop hero-worshiping billionaires.
The majority were born upper-middle class or upper class and had the best education money can buy. Self-improvement is great, but all these articles that are like “Learn the secret habits of the world’s richest men!” are actually harmful self-help pablum that instills in people this notion that all you have to do to be wealthy is work hard. The corollary of that is that if you do work hard and fail, then you just “don’t have what it takes” or you didn’t work hard enough.
Plenty of people end up destitute through no fault of their own, and many succeed through no credit of their own.
Wealth is created by the many. And the few get the credit.
