What about Ray Dalio? He dominated his industry almost as successfully as Gates and is about the same age. There is no pedigree benefit there. His dad was a jazz musician.
Drawing a blanket conclusion from a single comparison of only two samples is a hasty generalization. Downvoting somebody out of comfort for your fallacy is kind of assholish.
The existence of rags-to-riches stories elsewhere does not make Bill Gates an example of one. And that's what this whole sub-thread is about: is the riches to even bigger riches story of Bill Gates an example of rags to riches, just transposed upwards, or is it an example of dynastic headstart?
When you look at that pivotal moment when MS and DR were sent off on completely different trajectories by the 800 pound gorilla that IBM was at the time, it's unquestionably the headstart one. While Kildall was just trying to get a good price for their product/expertise (solid middle-class thinking at its best, nothing wrong with that), Gates was already playing the high-level game, brokering between IBM and SCP by merit of a foot in the door via family ties.
Drawing a blanket conclusion from a single comparison of only two samples is a hasty generalization. Downvoting somebody out of comfort for your fallacy is kind of assholish.