This is nothing new, it is very much along the lines of talent is overrated, Malcolm Gladwell’s work and so forth. Wealth, or other measures of success, depend on a lot of factors, and for example, someone who genetically is let’s say gifted with a very high IQ, doesn’t mean they are going to be successful, groups like Mensa are full of people who led pretty ordinary lives, who never really achieved “success” in the way we are talking about (doesn’t mean they weren’t successful, just that they didn’t stand out in ways many would consider a success). Nurturing has a lot to do with that, if the parents you grow up with are afraid of everything, afraid of failure, want you to take the safe path, you likely won’t grow up to be entrepeneur, you’ll likely end up an accountant or something; if you parents were entrepeneurial or were risk takers, you likely will learn it is okay to do that. A brilliant set of twins, adopted out, might end where one because a good engineer but does nothing spectacular, because he was encouraged to take the solid path, the other one might end up founding a major company or an incredible charity…someone of relatively normal intellectual gifts can do profound things, and to be honest, a lot of very well off people, self made or otherwise, are not necessarily intellectual giants (some are, of course, many are pretty ordinary). The skills, the emotional attributes, are very much environmental. Intelligence obviously does things, but unless guided, can wither on the vine, whereas someone who isn’t quite as brilliant, ends up doing spectacular things.