The real story was that she was a board member on another corporate board with someone who was also on IBM's board. Even with that indirection, she did use that influence to convince IBM to use Microsoft for the PC.

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary-gates-64-...

And had access to a computer at school starting eight grade in 1968, at a time purchasing price started at $500k, 4 million adjusted for inflation.

I have never heard that before. Do you have a reference? What I have read is that Bill Gates's mother was on board of directors of United Way with the chairman of IBM.

I agree with you. Looking at Bill Gate Sr's wiki, it shows he worked at Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP or a firm he co-founded before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates_Sr.

As far as I can tell it's entirely untrue. Gates's mother wasn't a lawyer at all, and neither of them ever worked for IBM.

As far as I remember, it's from a tech blog or tech history book, but I can't quite remember the exact source right now.

In any case, we know Gates father was a lawyer - according to Wikipedia he "co-founded the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates in 1964, which later became a part of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP (PGE). He practiced with the firm until 1998, when it was merged into the firm now known as K&L Gates. During his career he served as president of both the Seattle/King County Bar Association and the Washington State Bar Association. Gates served on the boards of numerous organizations in the Pacific Northwest, including the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, King County United Way and Planned Parenthood. In 1995, he founded the Technology Alliance, whose mission is to expand technology-based employment in Washington".

Regarding his wife, we should state he had two wives, and the second wife apparently had a museum-related career. Gates II first wife, Mary Maxwell Gates was also not a lawyer but studied education, first worked as a school-teacher and then had various board positions.

So I retract my initial claim "they were lawyers working for IBM" and replace it by the more precise "Gates father was a lawyer and her mother was on various boards and they both allegedly knew people inside IBM were looking for an operating system at the time".

EDIT: I'm based in Europe and a different age group - maybe some HN are from the Washington area and actually witnessed this, it would be quite interesting to learn more about how IBM and Gates actually got together, roles of parents and other intermediaries.