> When I try to compare myself with less educated/poorer people I realize my advantages can be significantly if not mostly attributed to my upbringing
Probably looks that way to the billionaire founders too. Gates, for example, happened to grow up when only a few kids had computers at home, and working with them was not that far separated from the hardware. He happened to live in a region that needed traffic control software, so he ran with that and succeeded. With one win under his belt, he and his small team were well positioned to parlay into PC software at a time when IBM was uniquely vulnerable. Had any of those variables been different, Chuck Robinson might have become the richest man in the world.
(Chuck, though fictitious, had a mundane career like 99.999% of SWEs that have ever lived)
Probably looks that way to the billionaire founders too. Gates, for example, happened to grow up when only a few kids had computers at home, and working with them was not that far separated from the hardware. He happened to live in a region that needed traffic control software, so he ran with that and succeeded. With one win under his belt, he and his small team were well positioned to parlay into PC software at a time when IBM was uniquely vulnerable. Had any of those variables been different, Chuck Robinson might have become the richest man in the world.
(Chuck, though fictitious, had a mundane career like 99.999% of SWEs that have ever lived)