Privilege disclaimer

Andrew Askins -

If I'm going to be writing about success on this site, I thought it would also be helpful to have some context.

I've had a lot of help along the way, and expect to have a lot of help in the future. Some of it I have earned, and will earn. A lot of it I lucked into by random chance (I'm not a believer in fate).

We all have different levels of privilege. Here's mine:

  • I'm American
  • I'm white
  • I'm a straight male
  • I speak English
  • I was born into a middle class family
  • My parents place a lot of value on education (and intelligence)
  • I was the first child
  • My parents read to me a lot as a kid
  • I'm tall
  • My parents set up a college fund for me (it didn't pay for everything, but it helped a lot)
  • My grandfather bought me a computer when I was 11
  • He also taught me to ski, lift weights and whitewater raft
  • My parents love me, have high emotional intelligence, and have put a lot of work into themselves
  • I have an uncle and a grandfather who are entrepreneurs
  • My uncle introduced me to the folks who gave me my first job
  • That job connected me to the folks who gave me the seed money to start Krit
  • I inherited a car from one grandmother right when mine was on it's last leg
  • I inherited furniture from multiple grandparents right as I was moving into my first apartment
  • Most recently, my grandfather gave me a friggin' boat!

This is an incomplete list. There a million small and big ways I've been lucky. I do believe you can increase your chances of getting lucky by working hard, staying alive and being good to others. But I've had a pretty big leg up, and it's important to acknowledge that.

Ego is the enemy and all that (I still need to read that book).

P.S. That header photo? That's me as a baby. My parents were playing with me on the horseshoe at USC and a photographer for the state newspaper (where my mom worked) happened by while working on this story.