[Empact]

If you want to believe those things are unattainable, you can, but just remember that Steve Jobs got an internship at HP at the age of 12 by calling the founder on the telephone. Literally anyone could have done that.

These opportunities come to those who seek them.

[why-o-why]

This completely ignores reality. Jobs was a one-in-a-billion. To pretend privilege doesn't exist by invoking near mythological probabilities perpetuates it.

[Empact]

His phone call could have been placed by anyone. The question is, was his success mythological, or was it because he was the sort of a man who was willing and motivated to place such phone calls?

[TheOtherHobbes]

To get the internship Jobs had to know about HP, and to live close enough to HP - in a relatively privileged part of the country - to make it a possibility.

Compared to Rest of US, never mind Rest of World, only a tiny percentage of twelve year olds had those two opportunities.

[Empact]

Opportunity is everywhere.

[gamblor956]

Steve Jobs' adoptive father was acquaintances with HP employees. That's how he got the founder's phone number.

[Empact]

I read it was in the phone book. If you’re too young to have experienced this, it may surprise you that phone numbers were typically publicly listed in books that were mailed out annually, in those times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_directory