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Yeah, I know there’s a difference. It’s not the same as Bill Gates, but proximity is a connection all its own.


By that logic any entrepreneur can just scrape together a few bucks and ride a bus straight to San Francisco.

I find it easier to just consider Steve Jobs to be exceptional here. He's the definition of not letting the circumstances of your birth dictate anything.


Steve Jobs was absolutely exceptional, but there's a good chance we'd have never heard of him if he grew up on a farm in the 1960s/70s midwest and never ran into Woz (who also benefited from proximity to electronics), got inside XEROX/PARC, or was exposed to calligraphy in the college he dropped out of.

Jobs has said himself on multiple occasions that he was lucky with timing and proximity to the industry and people, not that it lessens the immense grit that was still needed.


Ok, and I'm also lucky I wasn't born in village undergoing famine.

I haven't created any billion dollar companies yet, have you?


Nope, but I don't consider myself exceptional either. shrug




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