Your comment comes off as petty, and an excuse that unsuccessful people use to explain why they too aren't billionaires.

Is that so? I was doing roughly the same thing at roughly the same time (perhaps a couple years later). I talked my way into the local university to use their Unix machine. Was I able to do that because I was the son of an Electrical Engineer and because I attended the private school next door to the university? Hell yes.

However by 1970, CCC had gone bankrupt, which meant that the boys had to find another place to continue to work with computers. Luckily, Allen’s father worked at the University of Washington, so they gained access to computers there.

Of course he probably still worked pretty hard, but lots of people wouldn't have been within 100 miles of a computer before they were 20.

And so what if both just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Success isn't pre-ordained. There's always a little luck in every success story.

"in the 1970s, that the majority of teenagers with access to computer time were quite well off." -- now that's a claim that has no facts backing it up

Also, he went to a private school that had a computer for him to use.

I watched an interview of his where he admitted that if he hadn't gone to private school, it is unlikely he would have ended up founding Microsoft.

That's a bizarre claim. College towns nearly universally offer some of the most affordable housing and high quality standards of living in the US. They tend to have far lower crime rates than US cities, and radically cheaper housing.

Paul Allen came from a middle-class background and went to the same Lakeside private school that Gates did.

Yes, a stolen OS he had no part in developing.

I don't doubt that he's a competent programmer (or was at one point). I see no evidence that he's a great one. There are programmers with ten times his ability who will never see 0.01% of his money.

Who cares if there's programmers with 10x his ability, you're talking like programming skills should equal wealth. Sorry, no matter Bill Gates' programming skills, he was a genius at running and growing a business. Two totally different skill sets.

What makes the market the judge? It's picked some really terrible technology.

>Sorry, no matter Bill Gates' programming skills, he was a genius at running and growing a business.

Why is "running and growing a business" a good thing? I would say Microsoft is pretty good evidence that it's often harmful.

Do you think Elizabeth Holmes, Al Capone, and Bernie Madoff deserve to be rich? They were all pretty good at what they did.