The dad is an architect. So probably rich enough to afford (good) education and putting Kenton in the right place at the right time.
More importantly though was that my parents fed my childhood fascination with computers, making sure I had the opportunity to learn to code early (a volunteer at my school taught me BASIC at age 8; my parents bought me a PC so I could continue experimenting) and then they gave me a lot of free time to spend building things and learning. After I graduated my mom let me spend a couple more years in her basement just working on open source software projects. These are certainly privileges that wouldn't be possible if my dad didn't have comfortable income.
I got into Google by applying on the web site and showing them my projects.
Life is all shades of precarious, unfair, galtonboard-ish, windfall-ish. Pareto-powerlaw-nonergodic-pissed off pikachu-ish. Have fun. Somebody's got to.