<snip>
>Don't know much about how Edison or Zuckerberg got where they did, but Gates had extraordinary opportunities as a kid that gave him thousands of hours of computer use at a time when most people had none. He didn't just wake up one day and become a computer genius; he had years of training.
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You might find this article interesting. It is written by the chairman of Oaktree Capital, a worldwide investment management company. As a principle and chairman you can be sure he is not financially poor. The article is written from an investment point of view but that doesn't deter from the main points being made. The first 7 pages are the interesting parts in respect of your comment above - basically Bill Gates won the genetic lottery. At page 8 he goes more into ideas of financial markets and will be less interesting to those not interested in investing. It's written in an easy style, will take 10 minutes at most

http://www.oaktreecapital.com/MemoTree/Getting%20Lucky_2014_01_16.pdf