Let’s say you’re a new parent. You’re a US citizen, and you can’t help but wonder: Will my kid grow up to be President? How about a doctor? A football player? How likely are different options?
Below, I give some numbers for how likely a random American is to wind up doing different things. Unless otherwise stated, numbers are for a whole lifetime: eg., the odds of working for Google is the chance that a person will ever work for Google, at any point in their career. Most of these are based on “back of the envelope” statistics: they’re supported by real data, but they may not be exactly right, and some are probably off by a factor of two or so.
A very important caveat: all these numbers assume that the world remains as it is. For example, by the time a kid born today is old enough to be President, the US may be a protectorate of the Chinese Technocracy, dooming his chances. This is intentional: I aim to give a picture of the US as it exists today.
(1 in 1: Certainty)
Born male (or female): 1 in 2
Graduates from college: 1 in 3
Born non-white: 1 in 3.5
(1 in 10: One person at a family dinner)
Being a millionaire, in a randomly chosen year: 1 in 15
Born gay: 1 in 30
1300 / 1600 SAT score: 1 in 50
Goes to law school: 1 in 80
(1 in 100: One person in an apartment building)
Has an income of $400K or more, in a randomly chosen year: 1 in 120
Lives in Manhattan, in a randomly chosen year: 1 in 190
Becomes a doctor: 1 in 230
Goes to an Ivy League school: 1 in 250
Gets a college degree in computer science: 1 in 350
1500 / 1600 on the SAT: 1 in 700
(1 in 1,000: One person in a small town, or city block)
Works as a Google engineer: 1 in 2,500
Perfect SAT score: 1 in 4,000
Gets a Ph.D. in physics: 1 in 5,000
Elected as a state legislator: 1 in 7,000
Becomes an Ivy League professor: 1 in 8,000
Is worth more than $30 million, in a randomly chosen year: 1 in 9,000
(1 in 10,000: One person in an average-sized town)
Funded by Y Combinator: 1 in 12,000
Plays in the NFL: 1 in 15,000
CEO of Fortune 500 company: 1 in 60,000
(1 in 100,000: One person in a small city)
Is elected to Congress: 1 in 110,000
Becomes a billionaire: 1 in 200,000
Joins Skull and Bones: 1 in 250,000
Becomes a US Senator: 1 in 600,000
Becomes a cabinet member: 1 in 800,000
Becomes President: 1 in 20,000,000
(If you disagree with any of these numbers, please post in the comments – preferably with sources – and I’ll go back and edit if you’re right. Same applies if there are any cool ones I’ve missed.)
The Rationalist Conspiracy 
You mention president in the post but don’t have it listed in the odds.
Added, good catch
1 in 11 a millionaire, but only 1 in 120 earning over $400k… I don’t get it… unless there are lots of millionaires that don’t earn anything. 1 in 11 sounds stupidly large.
You can earn less than $400,000/yr and still save a million dollars.
I guess if you include house values, a large proportion of middle aged people are millionaires.
I wonder if it takes nest eggs into account (home equity, retirement account, etc). Sounds about right if so.
He probably means earning over $400k in any single year of his life. Someone could earn $100k per year or less and still become a millionaire at some point of his life.
Here’s the source I used: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/chart-of-the-day-9-of-americans-are-millionaires-in-2011/238458/
Thinking more deeply about this, I’ve adjusted the number to 1 in 15, since almost all kids (~25% of the population) are part of someone else’s household, and so would be counted as “millionaires” even though they had no control over the assets.
Wikipedia tends to make me think that the 1 in 30 being gay thing is a bit off — maybe outwardly admitting they are gay is that low, but the estimated number is much higher — “In a 2006 study, 20% of respondents anonymously reported some homosexual feelings, although 2-3% identified themselves as homosexual” (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality)
Yeah, I agree.
You can probably rephrase that as: “Will tell you he/she is gay”.
Or are you implying the other 17% of gays are not _born_ that way?
Does the NFL stat take into account that half the population isn’t even eligible to play because they are female?
Interesting and informative, but a recent and much-hyped release from the Census Bureau indicates that there is now an approximately 1 in 2 chance of being born non-White: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/us/whites-account-for-under-half-of-births-in-us.html?pagewanted=all