Exactly. And thank you. The people responding that these people may have had help but turned it into billions are missing the point of the story. They weren't born poor, like they like to make it out. And anyone that thinks that having help from wealthy parents isn't what got them there are being obtuse.

Yeah, my parents live in a double wide. My brother is in re-hab, and I make $17/hr. Capitalism ain't doing any favors for me.

I just listened to a podcast on Hidden Brain where they talk about how there are many forms of discrimination. We recognize racism and sexism but we rarely notice favouritism. The tell a story about a lady who loves to quilt so her hands are incredibly important to her. Her hands got all cut up by some glass so she went to the hospital. She explained to the doctor how important her hands were to her because of quilting and he was really caring and reassured her that she was getting the best care. A colleague or someone who recognized her realized that she was a Harvard professor. He had her rolled to another floor and call in the best hand specialist to treat her. We rarely get to see what we are missing that the "favourites" get automatically and the "favourites" have no idea what the masses do without automatically. Why was her being a quilter less important than being a harvard professor. It's discrimination.

This is all very similar to when Obama said "You didn't build that". It went right over people's heads and they instantly got offended. What he and this gentleman were saying is that hard work is definitely going to get you places, but luck, and a solid helping hand from and outside source is going to vastly improve your chances of being successful. Something along the lines of "It takes a village" but about money and not raising kids.

And without the REST OF US doing our jobs, raising families and paying taxes to provide infrastructure like railroads, airports and highways and libraries; churches and houses of worship; farmers and ranchers that grow the food; oil, gas, solar and utilities that provide the power; financial and banking systems that move the money; health care and educational systems to develop capable workers who are then employed by companies that make all those the products that get sold and bought by the REST OF US... would there even be an Amazon? There is no such thing as “self-made.”

Tell me the story of the thousands that have had assistance and failed. Being given "seed money" is absolutely not a guarantee of generating anything . Generational disbursement of wealth ends poorly, 99.9 % of the time. Look at lottery winners as an example of being given the "Brass Ring" and crapping it away in 5-10 years.

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Did any of them ever claim to be dirt poor though? I can’t recall ever thinking that they were or seeing them portray themselves that way. Even Bezos’s picture of the garage taken at face value very clearly shows that he was not living in poverty. At most they have portrayed themselves as being from middle class backgrounds.

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Most expenses made by the American lower-class are luxury goods. I am not saying all, but statistically this is true. Anyone has the ability to climb if they work hard and open their eyes. The lower class stays poor because of the culture of the lower class. Studies show, if you don't have a child out of wedlock, you finish high school, and you can hold a job, chances are you will be successful. That doesn't mean Bill Gates successful, but better than you would. Look at many lower class families, what do they look like. Again, I am speaking generally.

The problem is, middle-class Americans think they earned everything themselves, and don't even recognize the help they got from their family as "help." Paying for your daycare & various lessons, paying you to do chores, buying you your own car (or "selling" their car to you for cheap), helping pay for tuition, letting you stay in their house or giving you a no-interest loan when you are short on money, etc. These are all luxuries poor people don't have, but rich people don't think of as luxuries.

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I guess it depends on your definition of self made. None of the people started anywhere close to billionaires, and all built businesses that earned billions of dollars. To me that’s what self made means, not that someone never received help from anyone, by which standard nobody would qualify.