Nobody is telling kids to stay in their lane, so that’s a straw man.

However some people are proving that they don’t understand the risks other people face, and recommending that they take them anyway.

Advising someone to take a risk that you don’t understand is not leadership.

Is high achievement possible for poor people or not? That's the only thing in question here. Arguing that it's harder for people who start off disadvantaged in some way is a tautology, and in context does nothing but discourage people. People don't need you to tell them about their risks, they live them every day. What they need is for people to shine a light on their opportunities. Because that's the part that's harder to see if they aren't in an environment where other people are succeeding.

You’re making a false distinction between risks and opportunities.

A startup is both a risk, and an opportunity.

If you incorrectly judge that risk, you have the potential to end up with fewer opportunities than before.

The poorer you are the worse the impact of this will be.

Therefore it is important for anyone, rich or poor, to have a good assessment of the risk of trying to launch a startup.

How are people who aren’t in an environment where people are succeeding supposed to accurately judge the risk of a startup when that information is not in their environment?

They clearly do need accurate information about the risks associated with startups.

It’s clearly true that it is harder for some people than others.

Arguing against this may be ‘encouraging’, but it’s also arguing against accurate risk assessment which is foolhardy in business.

If Paul Graham want to help poor people take risks, using this binary argument is not the way to go about it. He should use some of his resources to produce some realistic risk assessments so that people know what they are taking on.

Is there a rash of poor people destroying their lives by trying and failing to build a startup? I don't see any. Worst case scenario seems to be they fail and get a regular job with the new skills they built while creating the startup.

I'm curious to know what risks involved in creating an startup the average person in the projects would be incapable of seeing on their own.

If your worst case scenario is that you fail and get a regular job with a bunch of new skills, then you don’t understand much about being poor.

For what it’s worth I strongly believe that entrepreneurship should be encouraged.

I just don’t believe the way to do it is silence discussion about the factors that make it harder for people who have fewer resources.