> Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated.
Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.
The single best advice I ever received is "Think probabilities, not possibilities."
I'm not denying that it is possible that an illiterate girl from a low-income family in Mali could overcome every obstacle and build a successful start-up. But how much would you bet on that happening? Do you also think that her success will negate the hardships that other folks in her position face?
I don't disagree with you, my issue was that yen223 was speaking in absolutes when there is no such thing, in the business world or life in general. Maybe I'm just being pedantic about yen223's wording, but it sounded to me like he was trying to say "You're poor? Don't bother breathing, prole". It was dismissive and classist. But then, I grew up poor, so I'm sure there's bias at work on my part.
I wouldn't go so far as the post you're replying too (I think you can do a startup without all the advantages named, but your risk looks different).
However, I think you are falling into the trap of identifying outliers and then trying to reason about the general case from it - it's pretty hard to use that to say anything more that "it's possible for X to happen, because it happened here, and here."
That's all I was saying, that it is possible to bootstrap yourself from poor conditions. I'm not saying everyone who is poor can do that; it takes hard work and, as I conceded initially, a bit of luck, but I'm simply saying it can be done. If I'm being downvoted for stating the obvious, so be it, but I have a feeling it's that I've hurt some privileged feelings here. If so, then good; everyone needs a dose of reality once in a while.
When did I say I was betting on anything? I was simply refuting the position that a poor person has never bootstrapped themselves into a successful entrepreneur, using a few well-known examples. Who knows what the statistics are on unknown success stories? As a poker player, you should know that even a bad hand can win a game if it's dealt to the right player.
Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.