 Self-made billionaires are a myth just like unicorns. Of course, being self-made is a nice idea. It suggests that anybody can claw their way to the top if they're willing to work hard enough. It's what the American dream is all about. If Kylie Jenner can become a self-made billionaire at age 21, so can you and I. Even as wages stay stagnant and wealth inequality grows, it's a comfort to think that we're all simply one cosmetics company and some elbow grease away from fortune. Unfortunately, a nice idea is all it is. The origins of self-made billionaires are often depicted as a rags-to-riches rise-to-the-top fueled by nothing but personal grit and the courage to take risks, like dropping out of college or starting a business in a garage. But in reality, the origins of many billionaires aren't so humble. They're more like riches to even more riches stories, rooted in upper-middle-class upgrades. How much risk did Bill Gates take on when his mother used her business connections to help Microsoft land a deal-making software for IBM? Elon Musk came from a family that reportedly owned shares in an emerald mine in Africa. Jeff Bezos' garage-based start was funded by a quarter-million-dollar investment from his parents. If your safety net to joining the billionaire class is remaining upper-class, that's not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, nor is failing to pay your fair share of taxes along the way. Along with Musk and Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and Carl Eichen have all gotten away with paying zero federal income taxes some years. That's a big helping hand courtesy of legal loopholes and American taxpayers who pick up the tab all while our tax dollars subsidize the corporations owned by these so-called self-reliant entrepreneurs. Did you get a thank-you card from any of them? I sure as hell didn't. Other common ways that billionaires build their coffers off the backs of others include paying garbage wages and subjecting workers to abusive labor conditions. But portraying themselves as rugged individuals who overcame poverty or did it on their own remains an effective propaganda tool for the ultra-wealthy, one that keeps workers from rising up collectively to demand fairer wages and one that ultimately distracts from the rule that billionaires play in fostering poverty in the first place. Billionaires say their success proves they can spend money more wisely and efficiently than the government. Yet they have no problem with government spending when it comes to receiving corporate subsidies. When arguing for even more tax breaks, they claim each dollar the government takes from them is a dollar less for their critical role in expanding prosperity for all Americans through job creation and philanthropy. Well, that's rubbish. Fifty years of tax cuts for the wealthy have failed to trickle down. As a result of Trump's tax cuts, 2018 saw the 400 richest American families pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. And U.S. billionaire wealth grew by two trillion dollars during the first two years of a pandemic that was economically catastrophic for just about everybody else. They want to have their cake and everyone else's cake and eat it too. Behind every ten-figure net worth is systemic inequality, inherited wealth, labor exploitation, tax loopholes, and government subsidies. To claim these fortunes are self-made is to perpetuate a myth that blames the wealth gap on the choices of everyday Americans. Billionaires are not made by rugged individuals. They're made by policy failures and a system that rewards wealth over work. Know the truth.