[9q9]

   Bill Gates had rich parents

So?

Lot's of people have rich parents (think, for example about the members of the House of Saud). How many of those raise to Bill Gates' level of excellence? He co-wrote a paper [1] as an undergraduate in a top mathematics journal. The algorithm he co-authored remained the best algorithm for its domain for 30 years.

As I used to notice this reaction in myself, and I've been trying to avoid it, I find it interesting to reflect on psychological/social function of the "but he had rich parents" reaction that successful children of the well-off get. HNs guidelines ask us "[p]lease don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work", and I wonder if this also applies to Gates.

I'm in awe of Gates' many achievements.

[1] W. H. Gates, C. H. Papadimitriou, Bounds for sorting by prefix reversal. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012365X79...

[robjan]

GP was pointing out that Gates wasn't entirely "self-made", as suggested by GGP. Gates in fact enjoyed opportunities that aren't available to the average American and is therefore not a particularly good example of social mobility. Pointing out that he enjoyed a degree of privilege doesn't diminish his achievements.

[9q9]

Gates probably at least 1000x-ed his parents wealth. By just about any measure that's being self-made, as the GGP correctly pointed out. If 1000x-ing doesn't count as self-made exactly what meaningful measure of self-madeness and social mobility do you propose?

   degree of privilege doesn't diminish 

Privilege is a vague term that has become a term of political abuse and has ceased to be analytically useful, I recommend to avoid it. For example, does anyone who uses it bother to quantify privilege, after all we all stand on the shoulders of giants? How is the modern use of the term privilege useful, given the vastly different outcomes of the children of the rich? As I said, not every child of upper middle class families become Gates/Zuck ... My inner Nietzsche smells ressentiment here.

[robjan]

It's easier to turn a million into a billion than a thousand into a million or ten into ten thousand. All of these are 1000x the original value.

So yes, he's not entirely self made. Not even close.

[BubRoss]

His parents had a few million dollars but he started microsoft off of a version of a very optimized version of basic he wrote. He amassed 80 billion dollars and became the richest person on earth. Paul Allen and Steve Balmer became multi billionaires as well. I don't even know that he used all his parents money to do that. How many people are able to start a company. It's the equivalent of putting in 1000 dollars and building a 100 million dollar company. Saying that isn't 'self made' is delusional.