- Born in the US and lived in Seattle; a major tech hub at the time.

- Father was a wealthy attorney.

- Mother worked for IBM.

- His first OS demo for IBM worked the first time even though they had only tested it on an emulator before. This is extremely unusual; there are a lot of factors which can make the emulator behave differently from the real thing.

- IBM did not see the value in software and did not ask for exclusivity (they could easily have demanded it).

Sure he is a very smart guy, but mostly he is a ridiculously lucky guy.