[intellegacy]

You have some facts about Bill Gates wrong. Not only is he smarter than other smart people but he's also harder working than most other hard-working people. It was generally accepted among his classmates that he was the smartest in his class at Lakeview and one of the smartest at Harvard.

Also, you could say that Bill Gates got lucky with the CP/M OS deal, but he was shrewd enough to give himself the advantage in the majority of the contracts he made with others. Luck did play a huge role in Microsoft's success but their success was multiplied by Bill's intelligence, hard work, cunning, and competitiveness.

[confluence]

You could rephrase that sentence:

Bill's intelligence, hard work, cunning, and competitiveness played a huge role in Microsoft's early success, and this success was multiplied manifold later on by extraordinary luck.

Once again I never said it wasn't necessary - the intelligence or the hard work. I merely indicated that it isn't sufficient for success above a certain level.

Your first statement is unverified, and probabilistically wrong. I heard a similar story that he dropped out because he couldn't take the advanced math classes, and that he was no longer the smartest person in the class. See everyone can do this!

Smartest at Harvard or Lakeview does not equal smartest at starting a company (also unverified - I'm sure there were people that were smarter/more hard working).

It's a sad realisation that in many areas in life (outside of pure competition such as sports), it's not about what people did, it's more about who they were, who they knew, and where they lived.

Liberating for some, but depressing nonetheless.

[intellegacy]

I agree that intelligence, after a certain upper limit, isn't required for success, and in fact an abundance of it at the upper levels may actually work against success.

Bill Gates stopped pursuing math because he realized at Harvard that he wouldn't be the best at it. He was actually taking graduate level math courses in his undergrad sophomore year.

source: http://askville.amazon.com/read-Bill-Gates-toughest-math-cou...

Anyways, I agree that smartest doesn't mean best at starting a company. Intelligence + Hard Work + Competitiveness + Connections + Luck all play a role. Bill Gates had all of them. Most people are lucky to have 1 or 2.

edit:: I guess the reason I'm replying to you is I get the sense that you think luck played a significant role in Gates' success. It may have, but if you read up on Gates you will learn how significantly better equipped he is for success: high intelligence (i'd guess in the top 10% in his class at Harvard if not higher), ridiculous work ethic, ridiculous competitiveness.

Luck plays a role in all success stories but I submit that Gates would be very successful even without it.

[confluence]

Agree. Luck is very important, always has been, always will be. I just want people to acknowledge that. Have no worries, I do work extremely hard, I just wondered if there was a way to optimise for luck. Work is like the kernel of truth that you put out there, which needs to be really very good, and it is then multiplied by the society around you. But just understand that luck is and always will be the defining factor in people's lives. Randomness is constant, relentless and universal - don't forget that!