We've all seen them — those impossibly young entrepreneurs gracing magazine covers, giving TED talks, and securing million-dollar funding rounds before they can legally drink. Mark Zuckerberg dropping out of Harvard, Evan Spiegel turning down billions for Snapchat, or countless other "wunderkind" stories that dominate our feeds.
But here's the question nobody wants to ask: What role did their parents really play?
A recent discussion on V2EX, China's equivalent of Hacker News, pulled back the curtain on this uncomfortable truth. The thread, titled "How do parents cultivate young, famous entrepreneurial kids?" revealed insights that might make you rethink everything you thought you knew about teenage success stories.
The Raw Truth From the Trenches
The responses were brutally honest. No sugar-coating, no inspirational platitudes — just cold, hard reality:
"Money, power, connections, vision — having just one of these can cultivate such kids."
"My college friend's dad gave him 1 million yuan to try business. He lost most of it at first, tried several times, then caught a small trend and made 10 million in 2 years. His parents' role was simple: give money."
Perhaps most telling was this observation: "Kids without money or power are cautious about everything, hesitant, because they have no backup plan."
The Invisible Infrastructure of Success
What emerged from the discussion wasn't a blueprint for parenting excellence, but rather a sobering inventory of advantages that most families simply cannot provide:
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