His father was a partner in a top Seattle law firm and his mother is a regent of the University of Washington and a director of Pacific Northwest Bell. You thin

His father was a partner in a top Seattle law firm and his mother is a regent of the University of Washington and a director of Pacific Northwest Bell. You think that didn't give him any business advantages other talented programmers didn't have? His mother is credited in her obituary with pulling strings to get him the IBM contract: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary-gates-64-helped-her-son-start-microsoft.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary-gates-64-... "Her tenure on the national board's executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed with John R. Opel, a fellow committee member who was the chairman of the International Business Machines Corporation, the business that I.B.M. was doing with Microsoft. Mr. Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other I.B.M. executives. A few weeks later, I.B.M. took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer."