Kylie Jenner has fuelled the myth of early success — but the odds are stacked against the young

As the world edges ever closer to apocalypse, it is important to take time out from the unrelenting hellscape that is the news to celebrate the occasional feel-good story. So, please have your handkerchiefs at the ready for the moving tale of a young woman who, against all odds, stared down adversity and achieved the sort of success of which a mere mortal could only dream.

I speak of Kylie Jenner. Forbes estimated recently that the 20-year-old, who parlayed her reality TV show fame into a lucrative cosmetics empire, is worth $900 million (Dh3.31 billion) and is on track to unseat Mark Zuckerberg as the “youngest self-made billionaire” in history.

The Forbes article prompted a debate, mostly among losers lazy enough not to have been born into a megarich family, about what “self-made” means. We don’t need to rehash that debate, because we all have access to a dictionary. It is obvious that anyone with the wherewithal to plaster their famous name on lip kits, instead of frivolously squandering their familial fortune, is “self-made”.

But enough snark about semantics. I want to talk about the cult of early success that has framed the conversation around Jenner’s fortune. Thanks to the pace of technological chance, experience is no longer equated with age and a cultural expectation seems to have been set that bright young things should succeed from the get-go. As Forbes put it in the introduction to its 2014 30 Under 30 list: “Never before has youth been such an advantage. These founders and funders ... aren’t waiting for a proper bump up the career ladder. Their goals are way bigger — and perfectly suited to the dynamic, entrepreneurial and impatient digital world they grew up in.”

While it is great that our impatient digital world has lowered the age barrier to success, it has also perpetuated unreasonable expectations. Increasingly, if you have not “made it” by 30, you are seen as being over the hill. Forget getting funding for your startup idea, for example. “The cutoff in investors’ heads is 32,” said Paul Graham, a prominent venture capitalist, in a 2013 New York Times interview. “After 32, they start to be a little sceptical.” Which is only reasonable. As a fresh-faced Zuckerberg said at a 2007 tech event, “young people are just smarter”.

The problem with the myth of the entrepreneurial wunderkind is that it is, well, a myth. Experience and time (plus inherited wealth and luck) are still important factors in success. Earlier this year, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the United States Census Bureau analysed data from companies started between 2007 and 2015. They found that the average age of people who founded the best-performing startups was 45. “If you had two identical ideas, one proposed by a very young person, one proposed by a middle-aged person, and that’s the only thing you have to go on, you would be better off — if you wanted to predict success — betting on a middle-aged person,” one of the lead researchers said.

Another problem with fetishising early success is that amplifying super-successful young outliers helps gloss over the inconvenient fact that most millennials are far worse off than the generation before them. Insecure jobs, low wages and unaffordable housing mean it is increasingly difficult for your hard work to pay off, no matter how enterprising you are. Unless, of course, you are Kylie Jenner.

WeWork, one of the world’s most valuable startups, has given meat the chop. Last week, the office-space provider informed its 6,000 employees that they will no longer be able to expense meals that include poultry or red meat. There also won’t be any meat at staff events paid for by the company.

WeWork is not the first company to try to enforce a meat-free environment. The founder of Juicero, the startup that went bust last year after its $699 WiFi juice machine failed to catch on, allegedly chastised employees who had milk in their coffee

Not everyone agrees with WeWork’s decision. The Trades Union Congress criticised the new policy.

Let it be said that I never pass up a good opportunity for procrastination — even if needles are involved. Last week, the co-working space from which I occasionally work was, for some reason, offering vitamin B12 injections. I immediately signed myself up. I have, you see, the trifecta of characteristics that mark out B12-deficient people

— Guardian News & Media Ltd

Arwa Mahdawi is a writer and brand strategist based in New York. Twitter: @ArwaM