What about Replit? Two guys in a coffee shop in Jordan, you cannot be much further from Silicon Valley. They got turned down four times from YC and decided never to try again. But pg fell in love with the startup and urged him to try again. Then during the interview one of them got into a heated argument with Michael Siebel and thought for sure he had failed.

Yet he got in without a wealthy family and an American Ivy League degree. There are lots of other examples, I can even think of a one in Michigan.