Google only partially started in Susan Wojcicki's parent's garage. The reality is that L&S already did a bunch of the Google work at Stanford.
Same with e.g. Netscape. It started as a fork of Mosaic, already developed and paid for by a team.
Anyways, largely agreeing with you. Rich parents or favourable conditions generally play into it.
The other thing is that these conditions also tend to bias things such that even for the people who "bootstrap", they're young; which means that experienced, "wise" engineers ... who generally have lives and responsibilities ... are on the whole excluded. Which I think has a deleterious effect on the kind of products/projects that can make it to market.
Agreed A LOT of successful founder stories fall apart when you dig below the surface.
Being born to parents rich enough that you could pursue an expensive education at a prestigious school, possibly beyond a 4 year degree. And then have the luxury of falling back to "living at home" with parents who own a home in a HCOL area where all the action is like NYC/SF/Seattle/Boston. And finally falling back on parental skills or connections because being in a HCOL area, they are distinguished professionals themselves who can give you legal/sales advice or hand you your first customers.
My parents handed me the newspaper with lawn care jobs circled when I turned 16. If I didn't succeed in college, and get a good job.. living-at-home would be in a shared bedroom with a younger sibling in an exurb.
And I was STILL lucky, probably in the economic top 10 or 20%, because I had a home to fall back on, 25% scholarship + 50% family funding which left me with minimal loans.
Most of these success stories are from kids who started in the 5% and got into the 0.1%.
Same with e.g. Netscape. It started as a fork of Mosaic, already developed and paid for by a team.
Anyways, largely agreeing with you. Rich parents or favourable conditions generally play into it.
The other thing is that these conditions also tend to bias things such that even for the people who "bootstrap", they're young; which means that experienced, "wise" engineers ... who generally have lives and responsibilities ... are on the whole excluded. Which I think has a deleterious effect on the kind of products/projects that can make it to market.