(One of my favorite anecdotes on this subject: One of the best entrepreneurs I know went down to Mexico and hitchhiked all over when she was 18 years old. And every family that picked her up told her that what she was doing was very dangerous and that she was very lucky to be picked up by that family, instead of someone more dangerous. But at the time she was very innocent. 20 years later I ran into her and I was like "You know what you did was crazy?" and she was like "Now that I think about it, I'm amazed that I survived.")
You can pull edge cases like Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard, but even then he spent a lot of time in his 20s running his business.
Less flippantly, you should expect people running high-variance strategies to be overrepresented at the top. The people leading countries may go to school and get law degrees, but if they stay the path of doing what everyone else does but better, they end up an unremarkable partner at a law firm or something, not POTUS or Bezos or Musk. They don't have to literally do life-threateningly dangerous things (although I'm sure the propensity correlates and that's what the previous poster was talking about), but they do have to be willing to risk the comfortable life that was all but guaranteed for them.
That's why the overwhelming majority of representatives, both in the business sector as well as governments is lawyers, public servants, academics, engineers, long time party members, and so on. And of course inheritance is the other big factor. The most common form of business is the private family business.
Even in democratic politics inheritance is arguably one of the biggest factors. The Trudeaus and Bush's are your stereotypical leaders
The best of the best likely come from privileged background simply because of the access to resources.
The idea that meritocracy is some of egalitarianism is a myth.
Most teens can't leave the town their parents live in. Student loans aren't gonna pay for your travel and for the folks not going to school, there is a crappy job waiting for them that might give basic health insurance. There simply aren't resources available that allow folks to explore the world.
Maybe you're imagining correlation where there is none?
It's so weird that, from a central Texas perspective, we used to be a short drive from visiting another COUNTRY, which is now effectively a blank space on the map of the world around us. Ski west in New Mexico, eat easy in New Orleans, Hike north in Colorado. South? Here be dragons.
Maybe the next 30 years will be the same story in the opposite direction, but I don't know. I haven't seen anything to give me hope of that.
His idol was Warren Buffet -- not exactly a reckless risk taker
And he was into regenerative farming. That is very much NOT a "get rich quick" scheme.
It was about building value over the long term.
This comment says more about you than the subject of article (and not in a bad way, just saying it doesn't really apply here)
Another example: From the use of "BRIC"/"BRICS" one might think that those nations would be similar in some way.
I have heard of at least two young Western women who in recent years hitchhiked across China, documenting their experience along the way. One could never, ever imagine doing that in the other BRICS countries (with prewar Russia being the safest of the four, but still pretty risky).
Nations matter. Cultures matter.
Places certainly do change.
Probably 60-70% of the classes have the same cookie-cutter Finance/Tech/Consulting backgrounds. Some of the most risk averse and carefully planned professionals you'll find.
History is interpreted by historians, from many sources (newspapers, findings, books, mindset etc), history is NOT "written" but interpreted, and that interpretation can change massively with just one new found source of information.
I don't enjoy articles that preamble about the lack of clouds in the sky.
Here's the meat:
> Kevin drowned in a kayaking accident at a friend’s birthday party. At 14, he had just published his autobiography. He was making plans to expand his 350-acre farm to buy up surrounding farms to convert to regenerative agriculture. He was saving money to build a house for his parents and another for his autistic older brother. He was polishing a movie script and a series of children’s books teaching business literacy for kids. He was looking for a celebrity to endorse his line of luxury toiletries made from the milk of his goat herd. He was breeding heritage turkeys. He was writing guest essays for notable bloggers higher up the political food chain. And, in his spare time, he had the task of grading the road to his farm using the John Deere tractor he bought new for himself for his 11th birthday.
and
> A friend once remarked, “You guys aren’t even raising him; you’re just kind of the audience watching him raise himself.”
> promising no rain as it has for nearly a year
The area was experiencing a drought.
> And then, after 14 months without rain, the well that supplied their house went dry. For nine months the Coopers hauled water by the barrel for their household needs.
The whole reason that there's a story here is because it's exceptional. If he hadn't been an outlier, there would be no story. There's no conspiracy to embarass your younger self, here.
I bought my first hard drive, drums and television with profits from contract software development when I was 10. I was on my first (non-profit) board of directors when I was 14, and I got a small business loan - co-signed by my father - when I was 15.
None of this is as rare as you so righteously think. The key detail you may have glossed over is that while his parents are disabled, he was clearly very proactive about recruiting mentors and advisors online. He got really great at doing two things: teaching himself new things as they are needed, and developing a network of people who he could ask for help and advice. It's a winning strategy.
Where are the verifiable facts? Where are the citations? You may see the story as just a list of 'verifiable facts,' but that's absolutely not what it is.
I'm not saying I think the whole thing is made up, but it isn't simply a collection of attestations that any individual can verify. It is an emotional, evocative lifestyle story published by an outlet that, as far as I can tell, is outright owned by the LDS church. And the author? They have one other story credit.
I don't know enough about the LDS or this particular publication to make a specific claim, but I guarantee this story has been affected by some kind of agenda or policy position. I find it interesting that the first two 'political bloggers' who 'discovered' his writing are Bari Weiss (a contentious figure certainly, but also one who has vehemently criticized formal/higher education in the US) and Hannah Frankman of the:
> ...Foundation for Economic Education, a nonprofit foundation focusing on teaching young people principles of entrepreneurship and economics, and promoting home-schooling.
Interesting. Oh, look at that:
> Frankman, too, was working on a story about Kevin as an unschooling success story when he died.
Listen, this is a feel good story, and it's not my intention to pick it apart, but don't go after people for taking a hard look at something they come across online. Further, it's possible your self-image (a young gifted outlier) impacts your ability to approach this critically (or see why other people would approach this story critically).
P.s.
There are also just weird anecdotes in the story that make me even more skeptical like the claim he bought a tractor at age 11. Okay, maybe it was a cheap, used tractor? No, the article later states:
> Kevin financed a brand new shiny green John Deere tractor for $50,000.
What? No. An 11 year old did not finance a brand new $50,000 John Deere tractor. There may be some kind of explanation wherein his parents financed it using their credit, but he makes the payments yada, yada, yada... but the very fact the following quote is presented without further explanation in the fifth paragraph of the story is telling:
> And, in his spare time, he had the task of grading the road to his farm using the John Deere tractor he bought new for himself for his 11th birthday.
edit: grammar
As a frame of reference, where I grew up, you could legally drive heavy agricultural lorries (think 5/10 ton dump trucks) on the highways at 14. You were personally running industrial agricultural operations, including running heavy equipment by 12 or younger. If you grow up in those societies, you learn the ropes young and are given the opportunity to grow into your capability. In a way, it was kind of cool because kids were allowed to assume real responsibility so young and some kids are capable of running the entire operation. (This is kind of a loophole in US child labor laws but it isn't grinding in factory or something like that. And traditionally the kids that do this make some fine money.)
In this specific case, I expect the Mormon connection was doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes. Still, many rural areas encourage this kind of thing from a very young age and I can't say I wasn't a part of that. It is part of how they apprentice you into becoming competent at agriculture.
I cannot attest about this particular case, but I can believe that in a similar situation today with all the access to resources through technology we have, the things that capable kids under these conditions could do would be far more reaching than ever.
> In this specific case, I expect the Mormon connection was doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes.
Well yes, this is the meat. Tight knit, insular, often wealthy (or connected to wealth).
Things are different when it’s real rural.
Sure you can’t get a bank loan without an adult involved, but cash is cash. And if you need something for your business and a kid brings it to you, who’s going to look a gift horse in the mouth?
We also traded them for equipment like ATVs, guns, or whatever we needed.
OP has never left the city and so just assumes his life is all life.
Even his statement 'do we' just assumes we all believe as he does.
Cole also probably did what many young business owners do and put it in his parent's names.
Much of this is common place for country folk coming up, this kid just took it to extremes in all the best ways.
Finding lawyer's liens and trading work for property was brilliant- had OP paid attention he'd have had the answers to his doubts.
I know others said it was inspiration porn but I was just incredibly sad we lost such a bright star.
Edit- He-> Cole for clarity
> At 14, he had just published his autobiography. He was making plans to expand his 350-acre farm to buy up surrounding farms to convert to regenerative agriculture. He was saving money to build a house for his parents and another for his autistic older brother. He was polishing a movie script and a series of children’s books teaching business literacy for kids. He was looking for a celebrity to endorse his line of luxury toiletries made from the milk of his goat herd. He was breeding heritage turkeys. He was writing guest essays for notable bloggers higher up the political food chain.
> His spelling and grammar lagged behind grade level. He consistently misspelled the word “business,” and stumbled over the pronunciation of simple words.
doesn't really spell hidden genius of the 21st century but probably describes millions of peasants in Europe during the middle-ages. Family died of the plague, so son got a businessman at age 9. It happened a lot, but they were just some other serf and didn't have ideologists (recall the NYT-author who resigned because "woke") who celebrate going fullspeed back to the middle ages.
no, but about half the other posts here do - so I put down what my perception of the case is.
> with emphasis on his business acumen
To me, the business acumen of his parents seems a lot higher. On their twitter they start publishing his future books already :). Also there is a lot of financing (for example his John Deere) going on and while I can't see the full picture, I doubt that he signed those contracts...
> Later, when opportunities came to publish his thoughts, the written word became more important to him and he found mentors to help him polish his communication skills.
Worthy of note is that he'd published a book by the age of 14, so was probably at least at grade level. Sounds like he just didn't learn things homogeneously, but rather focused on some things before other things.
There are too many red flags and people with agendas here to take much at face value.
But publishing on itself does not require anything.
Thins kid also supposedly bought 50000$ by himself at 11.
What's being described isn't the ability to diagram a sentence, but to write above a certain minimum standard. That skill is certainly more important for the average person than understanding tax law as most jobs that would require you to know tax law have good writing skills as a pre-requisite.
As part of my previous work in education I did a lot of interventions for "unschooled" children in the Bay Area and can confirm the results of even well educated parents were almost uniformly disastrous.
There's a lot of value in:
1. Being well socialized
2. Having the standard set of skills that are a base requirement for being a white collar worker
If you're missing either of these (as most homeschooled kids are) it can be very difficult to find your way in the world.
What a human. Such a great balance of a healthy brain and the confidence to trust it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
You wish to take away the very condition which made him uniquely special. He seems like he was enjoying his childhood. Adversity breeds character and this kid had more than character than some entire classrooms.
Do you think this is a positive example of how adversity breeds character?
People who don't know anything about homeschooling and the myriad ways it differs from public school and private school -- it's a little like a bunch of Christians commenting on the life of a Muslim individual, having never studied their religion or culture or a bunch of Europeans in big cities commenting on the life of someone in a rural village in Africa.
I wrote a wall of text and deleted it. I just don't know where to begin to try to explain and have it not go sideways.
You take, say, 30 kids who happen live in the same area and are born within a particular year and shove them together in a class and they are all being shaped by the same teacher, the same curriculum, the same school system, their parents may know each other or may not etc.
I think you are likely attributing overly much to the children per se and not to the forces shaping a group of children. And I think we have done a lot of harm to how humans think about age differences generally. I feel like as a society we have an excess of baggage concerning dating someone of a different age, as just one example.
Reading this again and trying to find some way there was something not preventable and not finding it makes me angrier and angrier. Why the hell are you in a boat without a life preserver if you can't swim.
So angry.
Also, if you can’t swim, don’t be embarrassed! A lot of people can’t and honestly no one is judging you because you can’t swim. Go to your local pool and see if they offer adult classes and if not see if there is someone willing to teach you.
> He was making plans to expand his 350-acre farm to buy up surrounding farms to convert to regenerative agriculture.
Kudos to him.
Every death is unfortunate, but I understand why the death of someone who shows deep care for people around him, for nature, for the world, is especially saddening.
I can’t imagine any other situation where a parent would essentially dedicate their life to support their child’s development.
I know some people look at it as the whole 'self-made capitalist can do anything' sort of ideal but to me I see the failures of multiple systems.
“Then Kevin discovered the wealth of information in county property and tax records, including the concept of “lawyers’ liens.” A lawyer who is owed money from a client can put a lien on the client’s property to get paid when the land is sold, just like a tax lien. And lawyers’ liens can be bought and sold. Kevin found one such lien languishing in the Iron County property records and bought it for half the value from the lawyer who had forgotten it was there. Kevin doubled his money when the property sold within a few weeks.”
The hand waved details of this purchase and sale illuminated the authors intentional bias for me.
I would imagine this kid was on a similar level of genius, but seemingly more interested in making as much money as humanly possible instead.
I dunno, but I find that remarkably stupid, but I guess US has different standards for what's remarkable.
"But on a hot day last June, at nearby Newcastle Reservoir, Kevin drowned in a kayaking accident at a friend’s birthday party."
Article is worth reading. I think the title is pretty accurate, assuming the details are true.
assuming the details are true
It's less likely the story is true than that it's a GoFundMe scam.
I then noticed a tidbit of information in another article about it that somehow made me feel different: Cole Summers didn't know how to swim. He was out on the water in a kayak, with no life jacket, with only an autistic child for company - and didn't know how to swim.
Somehow it stopped feeling like a tragic accident and more like carelessness and stupidity, and I just didn't feel as bad. I'm sorry it happened, and my heart goes out to his family, but this was avoidable.
Somehow among all the crazy stuff he learned and accomplished at such a young age, basic common sense seems to have been dodged.
It's like going to jump with a parachute, by yourself, having never done so before.
It's a stupid, stupid risk and dying is not accidental or unexpected.
In rural communities, people are dying of many things, like not having medical care, drug addiction, murder, suicide, etc.
Obviously fate made this outing seem like a bad idea in hindsight, but I'd also say that leaving a 14 year kid to support a family of 4 is a bad idea in foresight.
i.e. if this is your takeaway, (respectfully) consider a different perspective
> More children ages 1–4 die from drowning than any other cause of death except birth defects. For children ages 1–14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes.
Definitely worth taking seriously - and not being able to swim is a risk factor. My kids have been taking lessons since they were in preschool, but even then I don't let them out of sight when we're in the water because they still aren't very strong swimmers.
For the truly remarkable (and the subject here seems to fit that), sticking them in any factory-like school setting is a waste. Un-schooling the majority of children would be an interesting social experiment that I'd rather see in a different country first.
The brightest candles burn out the fastest, wasn't that they saying, roughly?
Most public schools are clearly more abusive than simply not subjecting your children to the standard industrial schooling regimen.
it looks like it was the same here. He essentially practiced the life of a middle age peasant. I guess many had their farm going by the age of 12 ... and probably didn't have some weird capitalistic, and nationalist inspiration porn ideologist in the background (because writing a pseudonymous book and then dying to young sounds like that... also the wondrous mentors...)
see for example: https://greatbasingreen.com/about-us-2/ (who is we? - would anyone write like that about themselves with those achievements ) https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Tell-Cant-Ambitious-Homeschooler...