Being well-educated and well-connected doesn't necessarily mean you aren't great. The Sutherland boys were famously hanging out with Edmund Berkeley at his computer lab while they were still children, thanks to their mum knowing Berkeley through the General Semantics scene https://spectrum.ieee.org/sketchpad https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... . It was also luck, as well as skill, that got Ivan enjoying sole use of the gigantic, cutting-edge TX-2 for hours every week in the early '60s. You nevertheless still have to hand it to him for creating flipping Sketchpad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchpad in 1963 at the age of 24. On the other hand, Ivan Sutherland had created Sketchpad before he turned 25.