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In 2018, Forbes listed Kylie Jenner, of Kylie cosmetics and reality TV fame, as one of the richest ‘self-made’ people in America.
However, the (then) 21-year-old’s nomination stirred up a controversy about what the tag ‘self-made’ really meant. Many felt that considering she is part of the Kardashian clan and has appeared on her step sisters’ unnecessarily famous TV show from age 13, the cosmetics moghul is barely on her own and that Kim Kardashian’s star-power was enough to propel young Kylie forward, not to mention her family wealth.
When people use the ‘self-made’ tag, it’s usually associated with people who built their way up with almost none or minimal wealth to start, and is usually associated with the other richest people in the world – Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates. We’ve all their viral ‘origin’ stories, of how they started their companies in garages and it then grew from small businesses to the world-dominators they are today. But were these companies really self made?
The tale of Warren Buffett is told as if he was a scrappy upstart living in a lower-middle class suburban home in Omaha who had a knack for investing. In reality his dad was a congressman (and Bob Taft’s campaign manager!) and, uh…
A week or so ago, a journalist tweeted about how Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in his garage, in 1994. A psephologist pointed out however, that while he did in fact start it from his garage, his parents had invested almost 250,000 dollars in the company.
Jeff Bezos wasn’t the only one who had a one-up from destiny – Bill Gates, whose inspiration story we’re told as someone who “dropped out of college,” also conveniently misses the fact that his mother was already in a position of power, and influenced IBM to hire Microsoft.
It’s also not just people from the 90’s, even in recent times, ‘self-made’ billionaire Mark Zuckerberg also had more than just fate and skills to help him along, he had the nudge of his wealthy parents. Even if you’re not born to mega-celebrities it really can’t be stressed enough how much a leg up children of the wealthy get even indirectly. Mark Zuckeberg’s wealthy parents sent him to Phillips Exeter Academy (tuition: almost $57,000 for boarding).. …and got software developer David Newman to give him private tutoring in computer science before he even entered college. Zuckerberg, is, like others mentioned, an intelligent individual in his own right, but if he was born into a working-class family he simply…
While them having an already early start to their respective companies doesn’t take away from their achievements, because that does require skill to be successful, it does raise the question of what we qualify as ‘self-made,’ and if we make exceptions for some people, and leave out others according to our standards of what we hold as ‘achievements.’