Kylie Jenner, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates: The 'self-made' billionaires who were born into riches

The stories of self-made millionaires and billionaires have always amused us. We love to hear how school dropouts and people from humble backgrounds turned around their lives through sheer determination and grit. It is amazing to think about how hard work is enough to build a successful career that could bemuse people for years to come, only except it may not be the whole truth!

You heard that right. Remember when Forbes listed Kylie Jenner of Kylie Cosmetics as one of the richest self-made persons in America? We know that’s far from the truth, considering the riches she was born into and how the spotlight had been on her through her teens by virtue of being a part of the Kardashian clan.

Honestly, it should not surprise you if we say that is not the only half-truth we have been conditioned to believe. Social media mogul Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and even the co-founder of the Microsoft Cooperation Bill Gates were born with a silver spoon and had the support of their prolific families to set their ships sailing.

We have all heard their stories of humble beginnings, such as how Amazon was born in Jeff Bezos’ garage in 1994. But a journalist’s recent tweet about the rich man’s “struggle” brought to fore the untold stories of what really might have catapulted him to success, with due acknowledgement of his acumen and labour, of course.

On this day in 1994: Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in his garage. pic.twitter.com/vtlu570KeX

— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) July 5, 2020

One Twitter user responded to the scribe’s tweet and pointed out that though Bezos really founded Amazon in his garage, he had his parents’ $2,50,000 investment to help build the company. In 2018, CNBC had revealed that his parents Jackie and Mike Bezos had invested $245,573 in 1995.

Cute propaganda. In reality Bezos's mommy and daddy gave him $245,573 to stop Amazon from failing in 1995, but you'd never know it from listening to our right-wing mainstream media that blames poverty on personal failure and attributes wealth to personal virtue. https://t.co/vM15SKIcWs

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— Aidan Smith ⧖ (@AidanSmith2020) July 6, 2020

You can find this in the backstory of almost every billionaire. The story of Bill Gates is told as if he was a normal guy who dropped out of college to pursue his dream when in reality his mom Mary Gates, the president of United Way, convinced IBM to hire Microsoft to build an OS July 6, 2020

— Aidan Smith ⧖ (@AidanSmith2020) July 6, 2020

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)...

— Aidan Smith ⧖ (@AidanSmith2020) July 6, 2020

The same goes for Bill Gates too. Sure, he did drop out of college, but it would be partial to overlook how his mother, who already wielded enough power, had talked IBM into getting Microsoft on board. And this is not tittle-tattle. A New York Times report had confirmed that Mary Gates might really have persuaded IBM to invest in Bill Gates' company.

Even ‘self-made’ billionaire Mark Zuckerberg found support from his wealthy parents, and this, the Facebook founder himself confirmed in a 2010 interview to The New Yorker.

It is important to reiterate here that wealth is not a guarantee of success as there are plenty of millionaires who waste their lives away or do just enough to hold on to their wealth, and several people who really rose from rags to riches. The point to ponder remains who we deem as ‘self-made’.