When it comes to the programming context in particular, opportunity is just about as "everywhere" as it can be.
Anyone who can afford a computer and a connection to the Internet can learn to program, can contribute to global projects, can self-educate in programming and can do amazing things.
All you need is a computer, and Internet connection and commitment. It does not even take privilege - although it used to (Bill Gates for example was from a privileged family in Seattle and went to a school that bought a computer incredibly early - that was a direct outcome of the money of his family).
I always recommend against careers that "require the grace of others to practice your art/craft/career". What I mean by this is that to do your chosen job, you need someone else to give you the opportunity/permission/resources to do the work you want to do. Consider a guy I knew when I was much younger. He REALLY wanted to be a movie director, but back then you needed money, a crew/team, equipment and a whole bunch of other people helping - and to really succeed in that career you need high level industry connections. That's a huge barrier to being able to actually do the thing you want to do. You're much better to choose a career that does not require anyone else's permission/money/approval - such as programming, or drawing.
First (anecdotal, and adjusted to regional variety, but stands to common sense) - all people who I personally know to have gotten rich off of software were all bar none rich to have access to top of the line hardware/software/services to begin with:
1. accounting software in early 90s (there were literally three or four PCs around in my city there at all. Even software they just cloned locally from some experience they acquired studying abroad in USA)
2. internet/security in mid 90s (guy had T1 while most of us didn't even know internet existed or were dreaming of owning US Robotics modem sometime in the next century)
3. games in late 90s/early 00s (when we all fappped to pictures of VoodooFX and Riva TNT, they had them)
4. web in early 00s (most of us just begged for some limited shared hosting account to even see what it's about)
5. iPhone gold rush (price of iPhone was about my yearly non-disposable income back then)
Secondly, and this is part where I partly agree - software development really is one of the more democratized areas - but when field is so approachable that anyone can make money, anyone does. And that means goalpost has shifted to other things - social network, privileged experiences, marketing investment, time allocated to project, being able to fail enough times to succeed, etc.
I will say that your anecdote is largely only applicable to obtaining a first-mover advantage on a whole platform, and specifically one which has not become a commodity yet. Today, commodity computers profit software developers the most, and the tools are more available and cheaper than ever before. A person with a second hand Chromebook and some library internet can research, build, test, market, and sell an Android application, if they know to try.
It is incomparably easier to become a useful professional software developer than a licensed electrician (provided you're of a sufficiently-suitable mindset), at least where I've been (though, the one time I was flown out to interview at a company in Silicon Valley, I was straight-up told by one of the interviewers that “Here in the valley, we place a high premium on education”, so maybe it's different there and probably some other places).
Now, I will say I was very lucky to be able to fail a little bit later, and very lucky to have met somebody in grade school who would basically win me my first full time job while I was still a teenager, I was not in any particular luck when it came to access to computers or really much else.
It'd be really interesting to see the results of an income survey of 30 to 40-somethings with a simple question: Did you have the ability to play Doom in your house?
But here's the rub: Where does the commitment come from? I could be the person you're describing, since I learned to program on my own, except for three tiny details:
1. My brother, four years older than me, was studying programming in college, and talking about it when he came home on breaks
2. My mom, realizing her teaching job was in jeopardy due to layoffs, learned programming, and a couple years later was teaching it for an adult education program organized by a nearby university
3. I did take one high school course in programming, which forced me to get past the familiar conceptual hurdles faced by beginners
From these relatively minor circumstances: I knew enough about what programming was, its value, the fact that it could be learned by a mere mortal like myself, how long it would take to bring myself up to an employable level, and where to find decent learning resources. I had a supply of motivation and encouragement to get past obstacles that might have seemed insurmountable to someone who is under social pressure to undervalue their own potential.
I had a ready supply of mental energy thanks to living under comfortable circumstances. In fact, an oversupply. Learning to program was not at the expense of other necessary activities such as earning money, supporting other family members, etc.
If a person comes from an underprivileged background, everything they lack in the list of things I just described, is equivalent to an obstacle, and the obstacles are multiplicative effects. If this is an exaggeration, I don't think it's all that much of one.
Yeah, not quite, there's a reason that most of the big software cos are in the US, clustered in certain areas, and not in Kiev were so many geniuses are.
Networks, locality, these are important.
Elon Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and I was going to Uni at the same time in Kingston. He transferred to the US. The Canadians in his cohort mostly did not. There is very little 'game' in Canada - though there are decent jobs, there are very few high flying startups, and very few leading big-corps to make all the necessary acquisitions to keep the system going. If Elon were to have remained in Canada, we'd have never heard of him.
So even in a relatively affluent country like Canada, there is a massive dearth of special, great opportunity: the ecosystems are mostly not in place for it.
There are very major and affluent US cities with tons of talent where one could say the same as well.
There's a reason people move to the Valley and it's not just the weather.
Clusters exist in all fields because they have major advantages. This is particularly true for startups but opportunity exists in other areas as well.
The software industry is still more spread out than others and companies headquartered in the Valley have major operations in many other places (including the likes of Kiev).
Yes, it definitely makes sense for companies HQ'd in the Valley to have 'other offices' in such places.
This is the de-facto Canadian strategy, when the outgoing Ontario Minister of Economic Development was adamant that 'Canadian developers were top-notch, and go for 60 cents on the US dollar, and we intend to keep it that way' i.e. basically indicating that he wanted to keep Canadians (or at least Ontarians) poorer for the opportunity to work for Cisco et. al.
It's definitely a rational strategy in a way, but it's also self defeating because it precludes a competitive options. Imagine trying to hire talent to Toronto when said talent can 2x their income by going to the US? (I understand cost of living is different, but aside from housing, stuff is cheaper in the US, and many young people especially have a hard time seeing past the dollar signs).
This would be an optimal strategy for a country in difficult situation, trying to lever their top talent into the 'beginning' of an industrial landscape (i.e. Ukraine, who haven't had a proper economic footing, basically ever). But it's sad positioning for countries with already advanced economies supposedly trying to be competitive.
Canada's situation next door to the US, with a flexible immigrant population, a shorter history and weaker cultural ties vis-a-vis the US (i.e. it's not a big jump from Toronto to Chicago as it is from Berlin to Chicago, in cultural terms) ... creates kind of a specific situation.
The clustering analogy is very good, but it's also very hard to do. They are trying here in Montreal with AI, but I'm not so sure it will fare very well. Hopefully it will work out.
When it comes to the programming context in particular, opportunity is just about as "everywhere" as it can be.
Anyone who can afford a computer and a connection to the Internet can learn to program, can contribute to global projects, can self-educate in programming and can do amazing things.
All you need is a computer, and Internet connection and commitment. It does not even take privilege - although it used to (Bill Gates for example was from a privileged family in Seattle and went to a school that bought a computer incredibly early - that was a direct outcome of the money of his family).
I always recommend against careers that "require the grace of others to practice your art/craft/career". What I mean by this is that to do your chosen job, you need someone else to give you the opportunity/permission/resources to do the work you want to do. Consider a guy I knew when I was much younger. He REALLY wanted to be a movie director, but back then you needed money, a crew/team, equipment and a whole bunch of other people helping - and to really succeed in that career you need high level industry connections. That's a huge barrier to being able to actually do the thing you want to do. You're much better to choose a career that does not require anyone else's permission/money/approval - such as programming, or drawing.