All this rising from poverty to become a big shot crap has not produced good results, over all, I think. Makes for hungry, unprincipled demagogues with no regard for basic decency. But we’d have to study history to test the hypothesis and see if it bears out. This is just my gut feeling. Evita Peron, Adolf Hitler, Huey Long, Bill Clinton and Harry Reid are examples that spring to mind. They weren’t born into poverty, per se, but fell into it for the most part. Hitler wanted to be an artist, Eva wanted to be an actress, Bill Clinton’s natural father died in a car crash and he was raised by an abusive alcoholic. Huey Long, I don’t know the details, just read part of an old novel There’s a Lion in the Street partially based on his life.
Let's not overlook Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, Kathy Griffin, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters...
One outstanding exception would be Justice Clarence Thomas.