Public question, does having a wealthy background help you succeed in life? The question was raised in relation to the billionaires who grew up in successful and wealthy families like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

It is publicly known that the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, was born and bred in a wealthy family that paid for his very expensive private education. When he founded Microsoft  his parents gave him seed money to get the business going. His mother who was socially connected introduced him to the people that allowed him to sign contract with IBM for MS-DOS at the time.

Though this doesn’t mean that Bill Gates didn’t earn and work for his success in the tech industry, but had he been born into a poor family, it is extremely unlikely that his life would have taken the path it did.

Does having a great financial background help in getting people ahead in life? That’s the question the public had different views about, some argued that in Africa we have those people who grew up in successful families though they didn’t make it in life and ended up destroying their family legacy through poor financial investments and management.

As we all can agree that wealth and connections are important, but initially a great idea is needed before those connections can work for you, argued one of the commenters.

“Had Gates or Zuckerberg been born in poverty stricken family in Democratic Republic of Congo would they be successful?” He ended up by saying your guess is as good as mine but that answers the question of privilege as a primary contributing factor to success.