Quite the opposite in my reading: Kildall's place in the history of computing is being the guy who did not become "Bill Gates" despite having all the right skills and being at the right place at the right time. One difference between Gates and Kildall at the time was pedigree, and look how it turned out.

(Now I'm off to reminisce about GEM)

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.

Ray Dalio made his money on Wall Street before striking it out on his own. He didn't drop out of school or anything.

> Drawing a blanket conclusion from a single comparison of only two samples is a hasty generalization.

It seems unreasonable and uncharitable to imply that people are building their worldviews off of the stories of Gates and Kildall alone.

What is your evidence that "pedigree" made the difference?

Edit: how rude of me to ask for evidence!

I didn’t downvote you, but to honestly answer your edit: you’re not being downvoted because you’re asking for evidence. You’re being downvoted because it seems unlikely your question is being asked in good faith. Do you actually believe there is an empirical basis for the person’s opinion that pedigree played a part, or are you just challenging it becuase you know there is no such empirical evidence for those two specific cases?

Moreover it’s kind of missing the forest for the trees...yes, pedigree might not have literally been the differentiator between these two specific entrepreneurs. But do you have any meaningful critique to the basic idea that people with better than average starts in life have better than average outcomes? That is what is primarily under discussion here, not Bill Gates in particular.

usrusr said "in my reading" and that pedigree was the factor that made the difference. It is therefore fair to ask for a reference.

IBM knew about Gates, and went to Kildall first (in fact, Gates suggested Kildall to them). Why would they have gone if "pedigree" was what they cared about? Kildall had what they wanted, Gates did not. It dropped in Kildall's lap, and he botched it. IBM went back to Gates, and Gates didn't need to be asked twice.

Apparently you have read all the same references as I: without his maternal network, it is quite unlikely that Gates would have ever been in the position to suggest Kildall. Or to later not suggest Paterson as replacement, but instead resell him/his work for the markup that made Microsoft.

Even if that network wasn't actively involved at all (e.g. by notifying Bill of the opportunity to supply BASIC, I think it is highly unlikely that it want involved at least that amount), the buyers at IBM would definitely have been aware of his family ties and unconsciously or not have awarded more default trust than to a random stranger. It is also not unlikely that Microsoft was given a chance in hope of currying favors with a certain person high in their own org chart or in fear of negative repercussions. Both the hoping/fearing and the favors/repercussions don't even have to happen voluntarily or consciously, it's hard enough to suppress those effects when you become aware of them and don't want to be that kind of person.

> it is quite unlikely that Gates would have ever been in the position to suggest Kildall

IBM was looking for microcomputer software. Microsoft was the biggest player in that field at the time. Why would IBM not have contacted Gates?

Even then: the Kildall negotiations evaporated because of superficial formalities (fear of signing an NDA, according to wiki), almost like a language barrier between corporate and upstart. Gates would have either not been given the same lawyer treatment or not have been intimidated by it since that culture was not foreign to him.

NDAs are normal, I sign them all the time, and I have no "pedigree" and never went to Hahvahd and my parents were lower middle class.

The fact is IBM passed over pedigree Gates and went to Kildall FIRST and Kildall was offered the deal FIRST. All Kildall had to do was say "yes". The notion that one had to be born wealthy to get that deal is simply false.

Sure, but why was the NDA not signed? Fear that the big guy would screw over the little guy, inability to tell normal behavior from exploitative. The Kildalls were entering a foreign culture (not by nationality, but by corporateness/class) and blundered. The person who was more at home with the culture then got the deal, despite not even having a product. That's exactly how the family advantage works, not some comically evil "sorry you are not from a sufficiently important family, no contract for you".

You're delving into sheer speculation. Exactly what went wrong at their meeting is not known, many stories about it have circulated, the NDA thing is just one of them.

Kildall was not some ignorant yokel from the backwoods. Besides, titans of the computer industry do deals with yokels all the time.

In fact, Kildall did later make a deal with IBM to sell an IBM branded CPM/86 for the PC. Consumers had a choice between IBM PC-DOS, and IBM CPM/86. The former was $40, the latter $240. People (like me) chose the cheaper one, because nobody could explain what was better about CPM/86. And the rest is history.

You are absolutely right about speculation. But so is the assumption that it all did not matter at all and the WIndows dominance would have happened in just the same way had Gates been a farmboy (I'm exaggerating a bit, you never claimed that). But in dubio pro reo is not applicable, since nobody is accused: it's not a crime to get along better with some group than someone else.

Maybe that is the misunderstanding that kept this discussion alive for so long: I'm not trying to privilege-shame anyone, just questioning the claim that it did not make a difference at all. (Actually I think that privilege-shaming is a really stupid concept, it won't ever achieve more than make its targets bitter or cynical, if it has an effect at all. It's not wrong to take an opportunity, just don't force it through improper means)

I remember reading somewhere that when IBM was looking for an OS and was starting to talk to Bill Gates, John Akers (IBM senior exec, maybe CEO then?) was briefed on it and said, "Isn't that Mary Gates's boy?" Akers and Mary Gates were both on the national board of directors for United Way — and reportedly Mary Gates had talked to Akers about the importance of the newer, smaller companies in the burgeoning computer industry. [0]

[0] https://hbr.org/2005/12/how-to-build-your-network

Obviously IBM was looking at Gates before noticing he was Mary's son. Don't forget that Gates was already a major player in the microcomputer software business, he didn't need any more "connection" than that. Of course IBM would go knocking on his door.

I think nobody is arguing that this happens in 100% of the cases but being wealthy and/or well connected adds "an ace under the sleeve".

The 70s and 80s were also great times to start a computer related company, that's for sure.

The point is that Gates' background was hardly a precondition for his success.

Edit: Gary Kildall could have done everything Gates did, and Tim Patterson wrote DOS, not Gates.

Tons of people knew how to program and had access to computers. Computers were not invented in 1975. The lower middle class neighborhood public high school in my neighborhood in 1975 had a computer and offered programming classes.

There's a reason Allen raced to show Gates the Popular Electronics issue - he knew there'd be others doing the same thing right away.

Gates and Allen background was having written a BASIC for the Altair . Allen had also previous experience in programming. Not many (and much less younger) people had this background.

Specifically Gates and Allen were given timesharing access to a DEC-10 at school - which was an incredibly rare privilege in the early 1970s.

Allen had already written an 8008 emulator on the same model of mainframe as the one at Harvard. And that made it possible to update the emulator while at Harvard and then use it as the basis of their version of BASIC.

Any programmer at the time could have written in 8080 emulator. They didn't have to be a kid in school. The DEC-10 was a popular computer. MIT had computers available to students, too. Gates didn't invent BASIC - it was developed by others for use by students.

Edit: There were many thousands of computers at the time, and programmers to run them. The 8080 instruction set is trivial:

http://pastraiser.com/cpu/i8080/i8080_opcodes.html

and any semi-competent programmer can write an emulator for it in a few hours. The magic ingredient Gates and Allen had was Recognizing The Opportunity, and then Acting On It. There was no technical wizardry involved, and no resources that were not also available to thousands, and soon tens of thousands, of others.

The Jobs and Wozniak story makes this even clearer. Wozniak showed his designs to HP and offered it to them. HP's engineers were utterly uninterested in it. (And remember that the Apple 1 was built with off-the-shelf parts anyone could buy.)

There were few programmers at that time, so few programmers could have potentially reach the market. Compare it with now when you just need to download an open source programming language and compile it on many platforms.

This is completely irrelevant and misses the point.

A counterexample would be someone from a poor background dropping from college to found a startup.

Zhou Qunfei, the founder of Lens Technology, came from a very poor background and dropped out of high school at 16 to work at a factory. She eventually started her own company when the factory closed.

"If it's so easy to find a counterexample would you furnish me with one?"

You've misinterpreted what he's saying. He's saying "that isn't a valid counterexample".

If it's so easy to find a counterexample would you furnish me with one?

Counterexamples matter a great deal when someone claims that something is a rule without exceptions. They're very nearly pointless when someone states something that has many obvious exceptions but still means something, "men are taller than women", "rich people can take risks that poor people cannot" etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_paradox BTW.

Which is what I was pointing out rhetorically...

Also, it's not just that rich people can takes risks that poor people cannot. It's that they never risk a minimum standard of living. Poor people making decisions like that do.

> someone from a poor background dropping from college to found a startup

Steve Jobs

Edit: Jan Koum is another

Steve Jobs' family had a nice middle-class life, and his parents even moved so he'd be in a better school district iirc.

> Steve Jobs' family had a nice middle-class life

According to the original argument, that directly contradicts the assertion that only highly priviledged people linked to the elite are able to succeed.

Unless the goalpost is moved further away to the point that middle class is now part of the elite, it's quite clear the original argument doesn't hold water.

Exactly. There is a jealous undercurrent on HN about success. Usually it is around so and so started rich and/or was just lucky.

Is some luck involved? Sure. It also helps greatly to not have to worry where their next meal is coming from, but that is very different than having to start in the elite.

There is a severe discount of what can be best coined “courage” by Aristotle, the balance between brashness and fear, when it comes to startups from people who don’t exercise it. Everything looks so predictable in hindsight that the virtuous quality of taking a chance is voided because someone started life eating better baby food. It’s plain ignorant.

Saw this on the Jackie Chan thread yesterday: "It's surprising how much luckier people who prepare are."

Jobs had no money, no connections, no "pedigree", and was a college dropout. Jobs' parents were blue collar, his dad was a repo man, and their background was poor.

Jobs grew up in San Francisco. His father supported an interest in electronics, and he got an in at HP by being mentored by a neighbour who worked there.

He joined the HP Explorer's Club and got to see world-leading new products ahead of release at a time when HP were creating incredibly impressive calculators and personal computers.

He also attended lectures on the HP campus - which wasn't just educational, but also contributed to his relatively fearless approach to networking.

The family may not have been rich, but it's just plain wrong to say he had no connections and no advantages.

Anybody in that area at the time could have done it. And SV was hardly the only place where adults worked on electronics. HP wasn't the only computer company. DEC was in Massachusetts, for example. Texas Instruments was in, well, Texas. Tektronix was in Oregon. Universities all had electronics schools. Radio Shack and HeathKit made electronics learning kits for kids. Los Angeles had a thriving microcomputer industry at the time.

The notion that Jobs was in some unique position is not correct.

Poor people aren't able to move just to switch school districts for their child's benefit...

Also, they had a nice single-family home with a yard in a suburban area.

Poor people migrate thousands of miles on foot to enter the US and then somehow reach every corner of it.

Land in the U.S. isn't available, however, to just "migrate on foot" with your family a few miles into the better school district. We have laws and property has to be bought. As a child who grew up in one of the not-good areas, I can tell you it's a lot harder than you think. :)