All successes is relative, so I'm not sure there is such a thing as moving the goalposts. I do think it's best to frame "success" based on the question as originally posted instead of some undefined framing from one of the two of us, so let's do that:
Vitalik Buterin is extremely successful. It appears he has never had to worry about finances, even as an extreme outlier for my cohort I still have to mind my p's and q's and worry about financial decisions.
I am successful for my impoverished cohort. At one point it looked like I would hit financial escape velocity where I could essentially retire, which of course would just have gotten me to Vitalik's childhood starting point.
The ability to sit and work on a moonshot for an indefinite period of time, or follow new trends at my leisure, follow a hunch, passion, what have you, without worrying about a safety net?
No, never had that. What he had in his childhood I still to this day do not have as an adult that represents the top %1 of my cohort. Even with my %1 outlier level of "success attributes", escaping the well of gravity costs a lot. In terms of real cumulative stress, health outcomes, missed opportunities, etc. just calculating using a simple base rate I would have been far better off being born into the upper middle class.
I know many individuals who are far less driven, far less creative, people who have generated far less wealth, who had childhoods and young adulthoods well into their late 20's who are still financially ahead of me.
Children/People love to have mastery and create and be recognized, children are mostly born curious, a hungry belly helps no one achieve greatness, we celebrate and immortalize the improbable stories whose success effectively represent _achievement statistical noise_ and we should be honest about that I think.
> At one point it looked like I would hit financial escape velocity where I could essentially retire, which of course would just have gotten me to Vitalik's childhood starting point.
You have more control over the assets than a child - it was not their money
Maybe you are supposed to be Vitalik’s parent instead of Vitalik
Success!!!
> but after exiting I am still not plugged into VC.
Isn’t this moving the goal posts ?