Yep, agreed. Kinda alluded to in my "random walk" metaphor. On the "Einsteins", you could go further and ask what happens to the ones that just lucked out and

Yep, agreed. Kinda alluded to in my "random walk" metaphor. On the "Einsteins", you could go further and ask what happens to the ones that just lucked out and couldn't get the patent job? What if they needed to eat and therefore took whatever job they could get which happened to pay well? It feels trite to me to point out life vagaries like this, but as we're all stressing, it really is fundamental, IMO, to understanding the lack of correlations between "success" and "intrinsic quality". Finding and getting on a good path for yourself is tricky, and, on the personal side of things, sure as hell was not stressed nearly enough in my youth.