If you're talking about the top most pinnacle of successes as we define it (ie money) I think it's mostly luck of timing tbh. Sure bill gates, zuckerberg, jobs are all geniuses of varying degree, but how many other geniuses exist that haven't become billionaires? Probably tons. For them they all identified a market need and were in the right place at the right time to provide it. Or you can go another step down, look at steve ballmer, billionaire, owns the la clippers now. He managed to get in on the ground floor at microsoft. What if he had been at abc computer corp instead that went bust? Surely he help contribute to microsoft's success, but it's also some luck that he managed to find microsoft at the time he did. Is he really thousands of times smarter or more capable than any other number of ceos who run smaller companies are are maybe worth a thousandth of what he is?
Success stories are littered with more and more examples. Rovio and angry birds. It's a fun little game, but WTH? There are hundreds more objectively better games. And if you read their story it wasn't even close to their first title, they had released a ton of games before hitting the jackpot with angry birds and I haven't heard of any notable apps they've released since either.
Genetics and upbringing matter a lot when talking about normal what middle class kind of people would call success, stuff like having a well paying job, secure retirement, buying a house and car, kids if you want em. But when talking about ultra success it's all timing and luck plays a bigger role than many people probably want to admit.
Actually now that I think about it, luck is a pretty big part in even middle class normal life too. Example, I bought my first house in 2006 right after graduating college. Every said it was an awesome idea, buy over renting, build equity and all that. Housing market crashed, sold it 9 years later for what I paid but didn't get back out the money I put into remodeling it, not even close. Had I bought in 2009, a measly 3 years later, I would've made out like a bandit. Could've had fully remodeled houses in the same neighborhood for 25% less, probably would've made 10s of thousands of dollars when I sold in profit. Oh and I missed the first time homebuyers credit. $8000 in free money by a measly 14 months. My buddies who had rung up credit card debt and thus couldn't afford the down payment on a house ended up better off than me a couple years later. Cus of dumb luck. They weren't smarter than me, many even made less money, they just had better ie lucky timing.
Of course I've been on the receiving end as well. My $40k college scholarship turned into a full ride scholarship (worth probably 50% more) cus the person they originally offered it to turned it down to go to school somewhere else and I was next in line.
