> Musk made his fortune out of a $20,000 investment from his dad.
And had a neighbor in the same line of work, who were apparently savy enough to fire him before he tanked the combined company on a useless rewrite. Also committed immigration fraud in the process. A much higher risk activity RN given the thirst for mass deportations.
> Gates made his from $5,000 from his dad.
And his mother's IBM connections, which were far more important than 50K.
Regardless, still cherry picking anecdotes when most folks have to live without such connections or family backups.
Musk arrived in the US with nothing but a suitcase and a few dollars. He stayed in a youth hostel for a while, and then took on minimum wage jobs. He had zero connections in the US.
5K != 50K
Also, Gates was very successful before MSDOS. IBM would have found him anyway.
You're right that connections matter. Smart people build connections. College is a classic way of doing that. People with similar interests tend to find each other.
What doesn't work is sitting in mom's basement playing video games and moaning about how unfair it all is.