The Rampantly Unofficial Linus Torvalds FAQ 16726

Well, to tell the truth, I would be one of the first to sign up as a Bill Gates fan if there were a club being formed. Obviously there is something more to his story than being lucky and having a rich daddy. Many people get a leg up from having influential parents, but Gates has virtually gone into orbit and it would be silly to think that his actions didn't have anything to do with his success. He and his buddies were the clbuttic computer geeks who would rather play with computers than do the rest of life's duties. He was somewhat uncommon at that, but there were certainly tens of thousands of people in virtually identical circumstances in the same timeframe. Gates and his friends have tens of billions of bucks and the rest may or not have a job today. A few others are also filthy rich although not near so much as Bill. What did he do differently? Perhaps he wielded the "monopoly" power once he had it, but how did he get it? There's a lesson there, I am certain, and the secret simply cannot be that he mixed IE modules with Windows modules in the same DLL and other such "crimes" found to be violations of the anbreastrust laws by the courts.