[vidarh]

Many people wrote software in the 1970s and started software companies in the 1970s.

He is not suggesting his privilege wrote Gates software for him, but that privilege gave Gates a substantial advantage over the large number of other people writing software and starting software companies at the same time.

His privilege is unlikely to have been a sufficient condition to explain his success, but it is also entirely unrealistic to assume that his privileged background did not provide him with a number of benefits, down to even basic stuff like growing up in an environment where success and ambition is expected and normal.

[gbhn]

Something I think often is left out of success accounting is an advantage almost everyone born in a large, well-functioning society enjoys: access to a large, well-functioning society.

If the civilization into which Bill Gates sold software were 1/10th the size, it would have generated 1/10th the value with almost the identical amount of work on his part. There's an enormous lift given to fortunes just by the fact that they are built in the context of a civilization which is large enough to support them.

None of that is to say that either specific inherited status or personal hard work aren't huge contributors to success as well, but it takes an enormous amount of work and attention to make sure that a large, well-functioning civilization remains large and well-functioning, and that's an oft-neglected factor in how big these large fortunes become.