Re:If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)
by darawk on Friday November 15, 2019 @03:52AM
(#21543343)
Certainly everyone else at his high school could have been doing what he was doing. I'm sure this wasn't the only high school like this, though the number may have been small.
Re:If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)
by hn_throwaway_99 on Friday November 15, 2019 @08:42AM
(#21544650)
I don't think people are arguing Gates didn't do anything to warrant his success, but they are saying that if he hadn't been afforded early opportunities significantly more advanced than perhaps 99% of other high schoolers in the US, or 99.999% of other high schoolers in the world (and I don't think that's an exaggeration - seriously, search for articles about how his HS computer system was networked in with U of Washington ... in the early 70s), that he wouldn't have been nearly as successful.
More or less unfettered access during middle school in the late 60s?: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/24/bill-gates-got-what-he-neede...
"Lots" isn't a scientific term but I still don't think it fits here. He was probably one of a few people at the time to have a few years of in-depth experience before leaving high school.
I'd call it a "myth of omission". It's technically true but the missing details are very, very important to the whole picture. That doesn't mean he didn't work hard or have a knack for it though.