This always sounded intuitively correct to me, but looking back over the past two decades basically all of the successful entrepreneurs and business owners I know didn’t come from families with a lot of resources and didn’t have much of a safety net. They just went all in on their goals when they were young and had many years ahead of them to start over if it all went wrong.

Contrast this with some of the people I grew up who came from wealthy families: A lot of their parents pushed them toward entrepreneurship and funded their ventures, but to date I can only think of one business from this cluster of friends that went anywhere. When you come from such resources and wealth that you don’t need to succeed and you can drop the business as soon as it becomes difficult, it’s a different situation.

I don’t know exactly what to make of this, other than to remind myself to keep pushing through the difficult times for things I really want even when I could fall back to an easy path and give up.

Who are you thinking of? Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk all came from wealthy families. They all had the safety net of their family wealth if their business didn’t work out. Even someone who had parents to pay their student loans is relatively privileged, not everyone starts their 20’s debt-free and able to take financial risks.

There is also survivor bias at play here.

Succeeding without safety net is hard -> only the best can do it -> the best entrepreneurs you know did not had a safety net

I've seen quite a few of these funded entrepreneur-lifestyle kids now; I've worked (briefly) with many of their companies. Many of them are making enough of a real go at it such that I can't tell them from others, but quite a few don't know enough about how a default alive business works and deliver a DoA even when the core idea or a short pivot works and has traction - these guys need so much better PMF to succeed.

The best businesses I've seen parents find for their children are lettings agents (urgh) and basic manufacturing (last mile door assembly etc.). You can get the business model in a six month course, the staff are minimum wage, the product is high margin. If your parents buy the building you are so close to default alive its a joke. Grow the business, flip it, and try the big idea.

If you don’t have a fall back, you have no choice but to make it work.

> looking back over the past two decades basically all of the successful entrepreneurs and business owners I know didn’t come from families with a lot of resources and didn’t have much of a safety net

There’s probably some truthyness to this but it doesn’t account for survivorship bias. And there’s a baseline amount of resources necessary to take a risk and be able to try again (e.g., good luck taking a risk when preoccupied by [lack of] health, housing, food).

I’d expect it to stratify based on the kind of business.

Typical small businesses (plumbing, HVAC, restaurants, convenience stores) I’d expect to come from poorer families. These businesses are a potential avenue to success without traditional credentials, and they’re not the sort of thing somebody is likely to start as a passion.

From wealthy families, I’d expect vanity businesses. There wouldn’t be as much motivation for the annoying aspects of a real business. And anyone who is interested in business can probably get a nice start in something their family owns or has a major stake in.

Moonshot companies I’d expect to come from the upper middle class, children of doctors and such. Not fabulously wealthy, so the potential for making millions can still be a big motivator. But comfortable enough to get advanced schooling and be willing to aim big with a chance of failure, rather than going for something mundane you know is always in demand, like fixing pipes.

Off the top of my head, Gates, Page, and Zuckerberg all fit that mold.

Well, how many non-successful entrepreneurs and business owners do you know?

you can extend that to all Silicon Valley and the US in general.

It has one of the weakest social security systems. Not even proper healthcare is guaranteed. Yet it out innovates all of Europe, Canada, Australia, other places that have incredible social "safety nets".

I agree with the other commenter: safety nets and multiple tries are always good to have, but persistence and grit are even more important, and these come more from necessity.

Every single western "entrepreneur" who starts making a little more than 100k/year likes to tell itself this story.

Did you have any (real, not GenZ) mental or physical disability?

Did you have a house to come back to every day? Did you have a hot meal waiting for you whenever you wanted?

Did you have a community that supported you through your business?

Did you have a legal structure around you that allowed you not to worry about getting kidnapped/killed? A structure that enforces getting paid after you've earned your money?

98% of what you have was given.

I do agree, however, that a lot of people don't even bother to put in the remaining 2%.