Leading Tech Innovators (Sadly) Never Really From Scratch

The stories of successful entrepreneurs who fought from the bottom are an essential motivational introduction for those who wish to follow a similar path. Determination not to give in to the situation is the main recipe in each of these stories. But in technopreneurship, the situation is different. Often those who taste success in this field have more capital than just an unyielding spirit.

Steve Jobs' journey, for example, is often an ideal example for most technopreneurship about how strong determination will pay off. Growing up in a middle-class family in California, United States, Jobs finally succeeded in founding Apple. Despite the many problems he had to face afterwards, Jobs was still known as someone who was admired in his field.

The story of Steve Jobs is often found on the shelves of bookstore entrepreneurship or articles on the internet. Renamed Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or even Nadiem Makarim, audiences can find similar epic stories. But not many know that their success earlier not stand alone because of their efforts. There are other factors that are no less influential, such as family background.

Privilege

We can start from Nadiem as the founder Gojek. Nadiem is the son of prominent lawyer Nono Anwar Makarim and Atika Algadri who is the daughter of independence pioneer Hamid Algadri. From his father's family, Nadiem has an uncle named Zacky Anwar Makarim who has a career in the military with the last rank of Major General. Meanwhile, from his mother's side, he has uncle Maher Algadri, a businessman from the Kodel Group.

Nadiem's ​​brilliant education at Harvard University followed in his father's footsteps. It was also on that campus that he met Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling who later founded Grab and become rivals in business. Just like Nadiem, Tan also has inherent privileges from birth.

Accept it or not, Nadiem's ​​status, who was born and raised with a silver spoon at the dinner table, allowed him to embrace higher education until he quit his job to set up Gojek. In simpler sentences: a person can be more creative when they have a safety net so they are more willing to take risks.

French researchers Francoise Bastie, Sylvie Cieply, and Pascal Cussy say there are two capital The difference between being an entrepreneur like Nadiem or Anthony is social and financial capital. Social capital focuses more on the entrepreneurial background of the network. While financial capital tends to be used to seize or continue success.

"The way they deal with risk explains why people with entrepreneurial networks tend to build new startups," the researchers wrote.

steep road

Then the question is, can those who come from simple families, without more privileges like those of Nadiem or Anthony, be able to penetrate the sweetness of the technology business? The answer is of course yes, but with a low probability.

Results studi The Smeru Institute published in the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) report in September 2019 concluded that 87% of children aged 8-17 years in 2000, born and raised in poor families, had lower incomes as adults than those who were not poor. when children.

Mayang Rizky, Daniel Suryadarma, and Asep Suryahadi as the authors of the report highlight seven mediators who can explain the relationship between poverty in children and their income as adults. The first mediator of the report found that although children from poor families were educated and had the same math skills as non-poor children, their incomes remained lower. After that they also calculated stress levels, connections in getting a job, and health. The mediator found that children from poor families still earn mediocre income as adults.

So what? This we can't confirm. Can mindset. Can connect at school. [According to] McKnight (2015): still exist unexplained additional advantages living in a non-poor family. The impact: greater income as an adult. Further study is needed," Daniel said via his account Twitter personal.

The story of Ricky Yean, CEO of startup PRX, may represent the study's findings. Ricky is a man born in Taiwan and is now trying his luck in Silicon Valley. His father brought Ricky to the US to seek his fortune. As an immigrant, Ricky who is still a teenager does various odd jobs to support his family.

Getting an education while in the US was a difficulty for Ricky. He failed to digest the material at the high school where he studied even though he had read it many times so he only had three hours to sleep. Ricky is also forced to withdraw money that should be used to pay all kinds of bills to take preparatory classes to university.

Long story short, Ricky was finally accepted at Stanford University. But throughout his studies there, the snare of poverty still enveloped Ricky. There is a difference in access to quality education at his previous school between Ricky and his friends at campus. He also had to struggle to make money to just balance the social life of his friends.

For Ricky, being born into a poor family can affect many things in adult life. He said that in the context of the industry, startup founders born from poor families tend to be less confident than those with privileges.

"Now imagine walking into a VC office competing with a kid like that. He's so sure he's going to change the world and that's what he's going to show in his presentation. You can't fabricate that kind of confidence on the spot," write Ricky.

Although he is now on a better path through the startup he started, Ricky has not completely escaped the effects of poverty he suffered in his youth. To hire new people he admits that it took him a long time to finally make a decision.

"I also realized the difference between having innate resources. I didn't have 'friends and family money'. Instead I sent my father monthly money from the meager income from the startup I founded," he added.

The privilege in the tech industry is real. Those born to wealthy families have a better start-up capital than startup founders like Ricky Yean. Setting up a startup is expensive and those who have wealth from their families will go faster than those who don't.