Another nitpick: > Inheritance caused it (in the way Bill Gates became the wealthiest man in the world by virtue of his parents already being wealthy, that com

Another nitpick: > Inheritance caused it (in the way Bill Gates became the wealthiest man in the world by virtue of his parents already being wealthy, that combined with a brilliant intellect and probably well instructed business sense available only to the already prosperous was able to create Microsoft - so if you are born genius with rich parents, you have a much better shot at becoming the richest man in the world, though I won't argue there aren't outliers). Keep in mind that Linus Torvalds became a multi-millionaire due to Linux [1]. [1] http://www.linfo.org/linus.html http://www.linfo.org/linus.html Personally, I think the man should also get a pile of Google&Samsung stock, that would make him even richer.