What They Tell You

Success comes from hard work, talent, and determination. The rich earned their wealth through their own efforts. Billionaires are proof that anyone can make it if they try hard enough. America is the land of opportunity where birth doesn’t determine destiny. The wealthy deserve their riches because they created value.

What They Don’t Tell You

Most wealth is inherited, not earned. “Self-made” billionaires usually started with significant advantages. Success depends heavily on luck—when and where you were born, who you met, what opportunities arose. Everyone builds on social infrastructure (education, legal systems, previous inventions) they didn’t create. And compound advantages mean small initial differences become massive gaps.

The Self-Made Myth

The story is powerful: Bill Gates in his garage, Jeff Bezos starting in his car, Steve Jobs dropped out of college. Hard work and genius lead to billions.

But look closer:

Bill Gates: His mother served on the board of United Way with IBM’s chairman, who gave Microsoft its crucial IBM contract. His father was a wealthy lawyer. His school was one of the few with a computer terminal in 1968.

Jeff Bezos: His parents invested $245,000 in Amazon’s early days. He graduated from Princeton, having benefited from top-tier education.

Steve Jobs: Built Apple using technology developed with massive public funding (the internet, GPS, touchscreens were all government-funded).

Elon Musk: His father owned an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa. He arrived in North America with family resources to attend elite universities.

The Numbers on Inheritance

  • About 40% of US household wealth is inherited

  • Among the Forbes 400, 60% were born into substantial privilege

  • Wealth inherited today is the highest percentage of total wealth since the 1930s

  • In Europe, inheritance accounts for 50-60% of total wealth

The Luck Factor

Success requires luck at every turn:

Birth luck: Being born in a rich country multiplies your opportunities enormously. Being born in 1955 (like Gates and Jobs) meant being the right age for the personal computer revolution.

Family luck: Having educated, wealthy, or connected parents provides enormous advantages.

Timing luck: Entering an industry just as it takes off makes fortunes. Being too early or too late doesn’t.

Network luck: Meeting the right people at the right time opens doors.

Health luck: A serious illness at the wrong time can derail any career.

Studies show that random factors explain more of the variation in career success than we want to believe.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Every entrepreneur builds on a foundation they didn’t create:

Public education: Trained their workforce

Infrastructure: Roads, ports, telecommunications

Legal systems: Contract enforcement, property rights

Previous inventions: The internet, computer chips, programming languages

Social stability: Police, courts, public health

A brilliant entrepreneur in a failed state accomplishes nothing. The same person in a functioning society can build an empire—but the society deserves much of the credit.

Compound Advantages

Small initial advantages compound over time:

Matthew effect: The rich get richer because wealth generates wealth. A small inheritance invested early grows into a fortune.

Network effects: Success attracts opportunities. Being published once makes it easier to publish again. Being funded once makes it easier to get funded again.

Credentialing: Getting into a good school opens doors to good jobs, which open doors to better positions.

What looks like merit is often just compound interest on initial advantages.

The Meritocracy Myth

The myth of the self-made man serves a purpose: it justifies inequality.

If the rich earned their wealth, they deserve it. If the poor are poor due to their own failures, they deserve that too. Redistribution is theft from the deserving to give to the undeserving.

But if wealth is largely luck and inheritance, this moral framework collapses. The rich aren’t more deserving—they’re more fortunate. And fortune, by definition, is not earned.

What This Means for Policy

Estate taxes: If wealth is inherited, taxing estates is not punishing success but reducing unearned advantages.

Investment in public goods: Education, infrastructure, research—these create the conditions for “individual” success.

Progressive taxation: Those who benefit most from social infrastructure should pay more into it.

Social safety nets: If success is partly luck, then failure is too. We shouldn’t punish the unlucky.

Opportunity programs: If birth circumstances matter so much, actively compensating for disadvantage makes sense.

The Humility Lesson

Acknowledging luck doesn’t diminish genuine achievement. Hard work and talent matter. But they matter within a context that none of us created.

The honest self-made man says: “I worked hard and made smart choices, AND I was born in the right time and place, had fortunate breaks, and built on a foundation others created.” Only one of those things was within their control.