Entrepreneurs are great, but it’s mom and dad who gave them their start

A recent study shows family money and background plays a crucial role for startups, and can be one of the primary sources of funding

What do Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk really have in common? Sure, they're all tech billionaires, super smart people, savvy innovators and successful entrepreneurs. But there's another thing: they all had families who helped them at the very beginning.

Bill Gates's mom introduced him to executives at IBM, which helped him forge a deal for his first operating system MS-DOS. Bezos's parents were early investors in Amazon. Musk comes from a wealthy, South African background. Among other well-known entrepreneurs, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly took a $100,000 loan from his father to start Facebook. Michael Dell's parents offered some seed money for his fledging computer business. Nike founder Phil Knight credits his parents for helping him start the company too.