A lot has to do with motivation, too. von Neumann was not out there endlessly trying to figure out ways to make more and more money. Enormously intelligent an

A lot has to do with motivation, too. von Neumann was not out there endlessly trying to figure out ways to make more and more money. Enormously intelligent and talented people like that are rarely motivated by things like that (though, of course, there are exceptions, but sadly even there they're often not successful, for a variety of reasons having little to do with their intelligence). In my own reading of biographies of people who managed to accumulate a lot of money or power, it's remarkable how often they come from extremely poor and powerless families. It's tempting to try to armchair analyze them and attribute their tunnel vision and tenacity at making ever more and more money and aquiring more and more power to their childhood deprivation and fear of ever being destitute again, even long after they've achieved far more than enough to support themselves and their families without working another day in their life again. Of course, this is rarely the case for tech billionaires, who tend to come from middle class or even wealthy families, but it has often been true of extremely wealthy or powerful people in other fields.