Yes, this is true. Also, one hell of a lot of luck is needed. I know this goes against most peoples' grain, but it is true. For example, Bill Gates agreed with

Yes, this is true. Also, one hell of a lot of luck is needed. I know this goes against most peoples' grain, but it is true. For example, Bill Gates agreed with it. He said that his high-end schools had computers or computer time available for him. He was able to get together with other computer buffs. This would not have happened if he was in a school where this didn't exist, or he went to a school in South side of Chicago in the baddest part of town. His father was a name partner in a law firm, so Gates got all his legal advice for free, probably including leasing his software rather than selling it, which had huge ramifications. His mother was on the board of directors of United Way with IBM's CEO, and she hooked up Bill Gates with the CEO and Bill Gate's software was on IBM's PC. IBM tried to get a PC operating system and went to Gary Kildall to get his version of DR-DOS, but there were disagreements and IBM said no. So they went to Microsoft, who went out and purchased an operating system for $25,000 as I remember ($93,502.72 in today's dollars) from another company and named it MS-DOS and they were able to strike a deal with IBM. Gates probably had this 3 or 4 year window that he hit perfectly for having his software be able to become the top company. A few years later and it would be too late. There is a lot of luck involved.