Comment by aquadrop

I think that's questionable and downplays his abilities. He won National Merit Scholarship. He scored 1590 out of 1600 in SAT. He had a profitable business running when he was still in school automating some traffic calculations, and he was actually hiring his classmates. You don't see that often. And I think one more important thing happened - he met very bright Paul Allen and together they were very powerful duo. Of course having wealthy family helped not to care about some stuff, but it wasn't just luck.