There is an element to that, but it is not only that.

Most (but not all) sizable wealth builders I've met or done research on have been people with a combination of:

- ability to cut through bullshit but play the game (so can generate bullshit when necessary, but aren't fooled or impeded by it) - work hard (yes - bill gates, bezos, etc. all worked their asses off during many important periods). - know the right things to work on (so avoid expending their effort on digging ditches when they can spend the effort negotiating better deals) - get in the right place at the right time (combination of luck, pragmatism, paying attention to wider trends). You can influence this, but never really control it. - ability to work with wildly different people effectively (often nicely, often not nicely depending on the group) to get what they needed done - ability to raise capital, and put it to use. (significant environmental, education, networking effects here) - don't give away the farm/give away too much of their own ownership or assets. - knows how to effectively address a market and deliver a useful product, or find and direct people who do.

This is not a common set of qualities. If you spent all the money in the world on training, you'd be lucky if 1 in 10 people could pick those qualities up. With Genetics and personality traits (ignoring the nurture element), even if they cloned themselves I doubt you'd get better than 50/50 odds.

If being a wealth builder is the result of a large confluence of events coming together just right, say:

- right genetics & right influences in early childhood to produce the right world view and personality - right set of circumstances early on to connect useful people for capital, or circumstances later to connect them to capital - right skillset with understanding and being effective with others of widely different backgrounds - right exposure to the right potential market, and the right luck with with many things (all of which have elements of personally influenceable factors and external non-influencable factors)

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that what works in the first generation doesn't usually last very long. The circumstances are different, everything is different by the time generation #2 or #3 happen.

With the right training, education, and circumstances you can improve the odds. But maybe a generation or two?

There is a saying I've run across a bunch - first generation builds it, second generation spends it, third generation blows it.

In large part because the environment each generation is in has fundamentally different pressures and environments 'by default', and a lot of our personality and approach to things is set in early childhood.

It's also why you see societies with more stable traditions of wealth/nobility/etc focus so much on traditional ways of doing things, acting, etc. is to attempt to keep reinforcing what was necessary for prior success even when it's not obvious for the new generation. Because they do provide necessary coping skills and the like.

Even still, a great many of them lose it all (statistically).