The inheritance stories are bogus, sure, but aside from those, I think part of the issue is that there's a sort of selection bias in FI individuals that makes i

The inheritance stories are bogus, sure, but aside from those, I think part of the issue is that there's a sort of selection bias in FI individuals that makes it difficult to just stay on the margin. A self made financially independent individual is someone who went against general trends in society for a decent length of time, who now suddenly has essentially infinite free time (e.g. probably 10 times the amount of a salaried worker or more, normalizing for energy levels). It would be odd for them to _not_ develop these side streams of income unless they just sat on the beach all day. Making money really isn't that difficult. The difficult bit for most is satisfying basic needs so that they're in a place where they can actually _think_ and act upon those thoughts.