[ArkyBeagle]

It's reasonably accurate. IMO, MS grew because of DOS.

They were hoping Gary Kildall's C/PM would be the OS for the IBM PC, and only leveraged DOS "to save the language business."

It's not clear how much of a factor Gates' parents' wealth and social network was in this process. Yeah, his Mom was on the board of IBM but Microsoft was an established brand already.

[sidlls]

His company didn't spring into being without a history. He had access to educational and tutoring resources, specifically technology related resources, his entire life. I'd say it's very clear his parents' circumstances were a huge factor in his early successes, and arguably much more important than those successes were to later ones.