Both Bill Joy and Bill Gates, though they may not have realized it at time, adhered to what Gladwell has dubbed the 10,000-hour rule. Both were smart and talented individuals, but the key to their success was the time they spent programming on computers. Both also shared privilege and good luck.

Bill Joy, who founded Sun Microsystems, became obsessed with computer programming while at the University of Michigan. He had access to one of the few computers at the time that allowed real-time programming. As a result, he spent thousands of hours learning to program when that was largely out of reach for most people in the word.

Bill Gates has a very similar story. At the elite and private Lakewood High School, he was able to learn to program on one of the few computers in the world that allowed real-time programming. He too had already spent at least 10,000 hours programming when the possibility of a mass home computer market began to emerge.

Like others who became giants in the computer industry and very wealthy as a result, Joy and Gates had the good luck to be born in the mid-1950s, which poised them to learn programming at just the time that access to computer technology was beginning to become possible. This timing, over which they had no control, was a key to their good fortune, as well as their hard work. Both were also privileged enough to gain access to prestigious schools with cutting-edge technology.