I'm sorry, I am going to call this nonsense.

I am second generation from immigrants who arrived at these shores with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They escaped Genocide and other horrors.

When they got here they grabbed whatever job they could. They had nothing. They saved their money. And when they could, they started their own small businesses (yes, both of my grandparents behaved the same way without knowing each other).

No, there was no IPO. These were small neighborhood stores. One was a little general store and the other was a shoe repair store. Yet, they had their own businesses and were able to support their family through their own efforts.

My parents, in turn, followed a similar path. No, they were not handed money. They worked at my grandparent's stores and learned an entrepreneurial work ethic. As they got older they got jobs working elsewhere, my mom as a clothing designer at a factory and my dad as a salesman at an insurance company.

Years later, after saving every penny they made, they decided to launch their own business, a clothing manufacturing business. My childhood memories are filled with moments in this little shop with both my mom and dad slaving away behind industrial sewing machines. Yes, the "factory" was mom and dad for the first year or two in a little 500 square foot industrial unit. Today we might call that a "minimum viable product". Yet the idea was that they where all-in, quit their jobs, found a contract somewhere and did whatever was necessary to deliver, make money and grow. My parents were no strangers to sixteen hour days behind industrial sewing machines while the kids did homework, played and slept in the background.

Of course, through hard work and pure grit they eventually grew out of there and, years later, found themselves running a shop that was about 50,000 square feet, with two or three dozen employees and dozens of machines of all kinds. I, as a kid, loved spending time at the factory messing around with stuff. I eventually learned enough about the machinery that, as a young teenager, I could fix the machines better than my dad or the technicians he would hire from time to time. And yes, I also learned to sew and worked the various machines from time to time. In the weekends my dad and I would go to the factory and prepare work for the coming week.

The work ethic was strong. We worked. And, no, we were not millionaires. Yes, my parents did well but the clothing industry was disintegrating slowly and they were very aware of this. Also, I think my parents worked so hard that they really didn't have time to develop strategies. Years later the factory had to be shut down due to the impossibility of competing with cheap Chinese imported goods. Dozens of good people lost their jobs and my parents went back to work for others. Funny enough, my mom went to work designing clothes and my dad went back to insurance. Exactly where they started when they were young.

Throughout this I never heard them complain about a thing. They did whatever had to be done to take care of the family. I think those were different times. People were tougher. There was real grit out there. Particularly from immigrants or first generation children. Compared to then, today's population seems neutered. Crying foul at the dumbest things. Filing for disability if they pull a muscle. Such bullshit. Such wasted human potential. I watched my parents and grandparents work no matter what. In fact, I can't even remember any of them ever staying home sick. Hero's, in the true sense of the word, at least as it pertains to the families they took care of.

When I got older I followed a similar path. I got nothing from my family other than this insane drive to do whatever was necessary to succeed. My first job was washing dishes at one of those companies that delivered food to airplanes (back in the day when they gave you real plates and silverware). I didn't last long because I had other goals in mind. I quit that and got a job at a professional photography lab and studio. I went to school at night while I held down that job. I actually started to function in an entrepreneurial way as I started to do some professional photo work during that time. It was fun work for a young 19 year old because I was going out to do photo shoots with stunningly beautiful models who I later became friends with. It was an interesting time.

As my school work in electrical engineering got past the basic requirements and got more into engineering I felt I needed to get a proper engineering job. And that I did. I worked at a company that made industrial robots, did some basic design work and helped with support and maintenance.

I saved as much money as I could. I stayed there nine years. And, yes, I did little entrepreneurial things here and there but nothing major. Nine years later I felt I was ready to launch my own business. And I did. It was a moderate success. I launched another and then another. I have done very well, I've gone bankrupt, recovered and have done well again. The basic formula is to be fiscally responsible, patient, save money and be willing to work hard and smart as needed. Success isn't given, it is earned.

I don't doubt there are many who are handed tens, hundreds or millions of dollars by their families to start businesses and play "entrepreneur". Those people do exist. And quite a few fail and never try again (or keep burning cash) because they are what I called "neutered" in terms of the grit required to be an entrepreneur.

The fallacy in an article such as the one posted is that money isn't the magical pixie dust that makes an entrepreneur or make him or her successful. No, the pixie dust has nothing whatsoever to do with money. Money is a tool. The pixie dust is a combination of many things, including smarts, timing, frugality, boldness, grit, determination, no fear of failure, the ability to get back up when knocked down and more.

You don't need to come from a privileged home to learn these things. A mom holding down three jobs to provide for the family is as much of a positive role model as my parents were. She can teach the kids lots of lessons they will never forget. What does not lead to entrepreneurship is a neutered existence where people are afraid of their own shadows, don't take risks, want the government to provide everything and become dependent on mysterious external magic to survive. This is how a lot of people freak out when the power goes out while others see it as an opportunity to do something else with the kids (and entrepreneurs try to figure out what product to come up with to address the problem).

In entrepreneurship money makes things easier if and only if the entrepreneurial foundation is there to begin with. That's why shops like YC need multi-founder teams and, even at that, they have to become their virtual parents and role models in order to ensure success and teach them the culture and ways of entrepreneurship. Young single founders without this "grit" would crumble inside of a year, money or not.

I would venture to say that the millions of small business entrepreneurs out there do not come from wealthy families. I don't have any data to back this up but it is simply impossible to think that my local ice cream shop, cleaner's, barber shop, AC guy, gardener, etc. fell into their businesses because they got some money from mom and dad. I think the opposite is far more likely to be true. They worked their asses off, saved some money and launched.