bill gates success, genius or chance?
 

a few days ago there was thread by aden about people with silver spoons claiming that their success came largely from their own devices amd I put this questions out there.

For all the gfy grammer police apologies for typos I'm on mobile.

Lets take bill Gates the most successful person in tech and arguably of our time.

Would he be the same bill gates we know today if he born into a low income family and started working with computers just a decade later?

Personally i think that a lot of ones success is self made but a lot also come from chance ...

I watched his biography and he was born into a privileged family and that allowed access to computer technology at very early age when children from low incomes did not have that opportunity or access to computers.

Sure he may have a gift but what if he has no access to tools to hone those tools.

he may be successful regardless but what if you didn't start computers till 10 years later

I'm going with very very sharp, great family environment, and a very hard worker

Still a hard working person. :)

Did you read the post?

The point of the thread was would he be the same bill gates we know today if he born into a low income family and started working with computers just a decade later?

his family was one of the wealthiest in the state. money gives you the safety, security and confidence to take risks. no matter what he did his basic survival was always guaranteed. plus the access to connections, capital and others with invaluable life experience that can`t be taught in schools.

Seems to make sense

yes, gates would have exceled in some area

Bill Gates wouldn't be where he is today had he not learned a thing or two from Tony Stark.


http://www.yourprops.com/movieprops/...es-Photo-1.jpg

so you think if he was born to a single mother n a non existent father he would be in the same position is today?


there are a lot of successful people come from low-income situations but I'm pretty sure that the percentage of successful people that come from wealth with connections education and existing successes from the family is 100x higher

who cares? that guy is a criminal and deserve a death penalty. he destroyed many innocent lives. but it is OK, he's american and rich

hard to say. just being born into a richie family doesn't mean that the parents are open and mature enough to give their children the room to evolve like bill gates did.

same with musicians. was watching a documentary on kings of leon, all of them came from a very back country, catholic upbringing, a couple of the band members were not allowed to listen to rock music and even more not allowed to play it on a guitar, so they left home and did it anyway......

now they are successful rock and rollers.

there are many discussions regarding this situation, and similar situations and opposite situations.. ...would Einstein have been who he was without abandoning his wife and kids? the most common thing in the world is UNREALIZED opportunity, UNFULLFILLED genius... what are you trying to say? that gates is successful because he is white?

how about this then: it is much easier to be successful going to school, studying hard than hanging on the corner with the crew...

The real genius was the marketing not the gates himself

depends on your definition of "success"... one possible definition might be achieving more than your peers?

all your family/friends/etc make $10k/year, getting to a level that they would consider "success", lets say $100k/year is very doable...

all your family/friends/etc make $10M/year, going to $100M/year is equally or perhaps even more difficult to achieve...

I would guess higher percentage go from 10k->100k, then 10M->$100M

No it wouldn't be the same.. He was at the right place at the right time and had the brains to do something with what he knew and then most important of all, had the money and connections to make it happen. There are thousands of people out there with great ideas and abilities but lack both money and connections.

bill gates was fundamentally lucky to have ibm drop dos in his lap.

that doesn't mean he was not smart or hard-working or given extraordinary opportunity being born into a priviledged, loving family.


but no dos = no windows or microsoft.

100k usd gross a year working a job is not success imo. You are still check to check if you supoort a family

How the heck did you get he's successful cause he's white out of what I said.

But If you wamt to consider race then sure there's a disparity even though ever shrinking with globalization.

Sure maybe but he would have a computer repair business or microsoft?
He surely would have had some form of income but starting computer 10yrs later in late teen and prob not where he is today...

He is a genius and should be respected by you lesser humans.

Actually as most successful people will tell you if being honest...their success is a combination of hard work and luck. Luck is always a component.

OP sucks dick for food stamps and has the balls to claim that 100k/year is nickels.

This guy is a complete loser/moron. Stop posting in his threads.

I'm literally centimeters away from pointing out who this person really is along with their scamming ways.

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, let these threads die. :2 cents:

Nothing to see here, move on. Last and only bump. :2 cents:

I read a book about Bill Gates - I think it was called "Hard Drive". Gates was driven and loved computers. That and a bit of luck make him a billionaire.

Hi harmon nice to see you contribute something useful for a change

Hi harmon nice to see you contribute something useful for a change

There is an infinite number of possibilities in any life. Chances are pretty good that no one would be in the same place he is today having started from somewhere entirely different. This works for both good and bad current positions.

seems weird, i take your thread and question seriously and take the time to reply. you choose to pass an opportunity to reply to that and engage in dialogue with someone interested in the topic, instead choosing to quote an antagonist 2x instead.


classic gfy!

hahahah. this place is so retarded. no wonder i like it..

Gates got lucky and owes 95% of his "success" to Apple and Steve Jobs. He was the first Pirate - let's steal someone else's technology, make it shittier but less expensive, and there ya go, pay me. Brilliant? Hardly. Gates' partner had the tech skills, Gates knew how to weasel his way into his parent's connections.

Timing IS everything so that helped him a lot. Other than that, fuck Bill Gates. If it wasn't for his wife he'd still be stealing other people's ideas and trying to use Microsoft's monopoly power to kill competition and force us all into his shitty Microsoft worldscape.

Besides, I bet 99% of his charity work is to ease his conscience, just like most zillionaires who got theirs through questionable methods. To some people if a person is rich they've "won" and no one can criticize them otherwise it's sour grapes. I don't find rich people to be Gods or Kings so owe no fealty to them.

Fuck Bill Gates.
/rant

PS: Windows 8 can suck my asshole and choke on my shit, too.

I believe you're correct and PS smooches

There is something to be said for making your own luck... that generally involves hard work + opportunity

My opinion is that Bill Gates owes his wealth to luck, his father, his work ethic, and his high functioning autism, in that order.

Luck, well, that would take all night. He stole from Apple, QDDos existed, IBM too arrogant, world needed standardized PC operating system, etc etc etc. I agree 95%.

His dad wrote all the important contracts, such as the famous IBM contract, that made him wealthy. His dad gave him wealth and stability.

His work ethic is famous. He went to 100s of user groups and all over the country to promote. I only know one guy (barely) who knew him personally when he was young, and he says his work ethic was legendary even then. What he expected from his people, he could expect from himself.

His gentle and well managed autism gives him the ability to code in assembler (!!) something few can do. He also is a famously demanding boss with zero empathy, and no malice or insecurity either. To him there is only problem and solution. Business ethics, stealing, crushing people, all done with expediency and not a whit more effort than needed.

"Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."

just be glad gates is who he is :) gates helped bring in the digital age... jobs damn sure didn't :2 cents:

Autism??? Oh great, now I feel bad for calling him a dousche.

He's just a little Rain Man idea stealer, that's all.

"10 minutes to Steve Jobs' OS, 10 minutes to Steve Jobs' OS..."

BTW: Gentle Autism were my favorite '70's Prog Rock band from Manchester.
:pimp

Steve Jobs was well known for being an asshole. Even moreso than Bill Gates.

Assholes rule the world. But we sheeps are assholes as well...

Thinking about this - was that the same deal with Howard Hughes as well? Or did he just have crippling OCD?

The deal with Howard Hughes, as far as I know, was that he crashed an experimental plane in the 1940's or something and it totally messed him up. He was eccentric before then but after the crash he was really odd. He was a pilot (Hughes Aircraft) and always flew the most extreme aircraft, totally cutting-edge, but he crashed and was never the same afterwards.

I believe it was a lot of luck. There were others trying to do same stuff. Just like the beatles weren't the only band with that sound or similar. They were just first to get discovered. Gates was lucky and a thief as well. Just ask the Woz!

In addition to the injuries he sustained, he also had neurosyphilis which was the primary cause of his spinning out of control behaviorally.

Of course there are other factors that helps, like you mentioned - he had access to computers earlier than lets say some other same intelligence kid who was poor.
There is no questions about that. Many things combined leads towards success.

I've heard similar story to with bangbros. One of the bros dads sits on the board still

to answer the question of the thread title - as gates invented nothing, he is no genius. But to say he's just lucky is not accurate either. He did do the hard work & connections cannot make you work hard for your success.

Well, he could have been born in Watts and died in the riot = LUCK

He could have been drafted and died in Vietnam; but being rich and getting into college meant he would get a "deferment" = Privileged



So luck and privilege count too.
You can't work hard if you are dead.

:1orglaugh

Please tell me you're not using privileged in its new sense as code for white - in the real sense of it, that he was actually privileged, I agree with you and that made a huge difference. He would have been in jail or a meth head or committed suicide if he had been born poor. Smart = death when you are poor and unsubmissive.