Elite outsiders? Power and merit in the biographical narratives of highly successful tech entrepreneurs in Germany

A central concern in recent sociological literature on elites is the disparity between the structurally unequal distribution of power resources in society and the minimization of that inequality in subjective accounts of elite individuals. This study contributes to the debate on this divergence in perception by drawing on a survey of 26 founders and CEOs of some of the largest and most influential start-ups in Germany – asking how these entrepreneurs narrate and legitimize their own path to an elite position. The main finding is that most of their (auto)biographical narrations ascribe the tech elite a status as outsiders to the established structures of the German economy. The surveyed entrepreneurs present their own elite status as meritocratically earned by emphasizing either their non-elite social background or their maladaptation to traditional elite career paths. In this study, it will be argued that their self-stylization as outsiders is best understood as a symbolic reaction in the larger context of the overall fading legitimacy of established economic elites. However, to be persuasive in appropriating and subverting the social figure of the outsider for themselves, these narrations necessarily ignore existing structures of inequality in the tech sector. This omission is especially glaring considering the exclusion of women from positions of power in the German tech sector, which this article critically juxtaposes with the dominant narratives in the field.