Outliers: The Story of Success · chapter 2 · id outliers-c2-03-the-sequence-of-opportunities-

“The sequence of opportunities -- Lakeside terminal, C-Cubed bug-finding deal, ISI payroll programming, TRW -- gave Gates roughly 10,000 hours of programming before founding Microsoft.”

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Receipts

Gates (1995), The Road Aheadsource alive

Gates confirms the C-Cubed arrangement (free PDP-10 time for finding bugs), sneaking out at night to program, the ISI payroll contract, and the TRW Bonneville Power debugging job while still in high school.

Wallace & Erickson (1992), Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, Wileysource alive

Gates's programming timeline is documented: Lakeside terminal (1968), C-Cubed bug-finding (1968-70), ISI payroll contract (~1970-71), TRW Bonneville project (1971-72). The 10,000-hour figure is Gladwell's estimate, not precisely calculated.

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