Your points about family are largely correct. If you make that choice, your responsibilities are quite set, until you either have enough savings (or raise investment) to take a risk or your children become adults.
You do not have to be free of debt. Your monthly debt payments have to be reasonable, something you can pay as part of routine monthly bills.
You absolutely do not need affluent friends or family. That's the least of all requirements anyone needs to start a tech company. First of all, it often doesn't take much capital to get started with tech companies these days. Second, your premise precludes someone having even a modest amount of savings (your theoretical person must be from a rich country, but they must have no money saved despite working a cushy job, odd combination).
You do not have to be a particular age. You're assuming everyone has children or a big mortgage. Birth rates in the developed world are at all-time lows, a lot of people are forgoing children or pushing it off until much later. You don't need a big mortgage, you can rent; most of the US does not look like NYC, SF, LA, Seattle in terms of cost of living.
You most certainly do not need to own a home. Multiple of your points put the theoretical person into that position.
> Looking at the most popular entrepreneurs in the world
Popularity is a pretty terrible reference point (why would that matter?). There's this group:
Larry Ellison grew up in a very broken home, his family didn't have much money. Paul Allen comes from an entirely ordinary middle-class background. Michael Dell's success required no special setup for what he did other than his own effort (assembling & selling custom PCs out of his bedroom, paid for out of his own savings), he grew up in an upper-middle class family. Elon Musk boot-strapped everything he did after moving to Canada, lived poorly and on a shoe-string budget after moving to the US. Jensen Huang of nVidia, was a first generation immigrant from Taiwan, with the deck stacked against him if anything; got his first degree from Oregon State University. Mark Cuban, who is more famous than Spiegel, grew up in an entirely middle-class background in Pittsburgh, and entirely boot-strapped his first success (MicroSolutions), which then paid for him to found Broadcast.com. Mark Andreessen grew up in farm country in both Iowa and a tiny town of 2,000 people in Wisconsin, his family had no special financial position. Ev Williams grew up on a farm in Nebraska, his family had no special financial position. Jack Dorsey grew up in a middle-class family in St. Louis, his family had no special financial position.
You do not have to be free of debt. Your monthly debt payments have to be reasonable, something you can pay as part of routine monthly bills.
You absolutely do not need affluent friends or family. That's the least of all requirements anyone needs to start a tech company. First of all, it often doesn't take much capital to get started with tech companies these days. Second, your premise precludes someone having even a modest amount of savings (your theoretical person must be from a rich country, but they must have no money saved despite working a cushy job, odd combination).
You do not have to be a particular age. You're assuming everyone has children or a big mortgage. Birth rates in the developed world are at all-time lows, a lot of people are forgoing children or pushing it off until much later. You don't need a big mortgage, you can rent; most of the US does not look like NYC, SF, LA, Seattle in terms of cost of living.
You most certainly do not need to own a home. Multiple of your points put the theoretical person into that position.
> Looking at the most popular entrepreneurs in the world
Popularity is a pretty terrible reference point (why would that matter?). There's this group:
Larry Ellison grew up in a very broken home, his family didn't have much money. Paul Allen comes from an entirely ordinary middle-class background. Michael Dell's success required no special setup for what he did other than his own effort (assembling & selling custom PCs out of his bedroom, paid for out of his own savings), he grew up in an upper-middle class family. Elon Musk boot-strapped everything he did after moving to Canada, lived poorly and on a shoe-string budget after moving to the US. Jensen Huang of nVidia, was a first generation immigrant from Taiwan, with the deck stacked against him if anything; got his first degree from Oregon State University. Mark Cuban, who is more famous than Spiegel, grew up in an entirely middle-class background in Pittsburgh, and entirely boot-strapped his first success (MicroSolutions), which then paid for him to found Broadcast.com. Mark Andreessen grew up in farm country in both Iowa and a tiny town of 2,000 people in Wisconsin, his family had no special financial position. Ev Williams grew up on a farm in Nebraska, his family had no special financial position. Jack Dorsey grew up in a middle-class family in St. Louis, his family had no special financial position.