Comment by tpoacher
To throw some controversy onto the mix, they are related, but in the same way that [some race] is correlated to [some behaviour] in the extremes of the probability distribution, but mostly makes no difference at the overwhelming core of it.
And therefore when people say [some race] makes no difference in [some behaviour], and other people say "Why is it always [some race] when we see [some behaviour]", and others say "the observation that [some race] leads to [some behaviour] is false because 50% of the time I see [some other race] being worse than [some race] in terms of [some behaviour]" they are all completely right, but just focusing on different properties of the distribution.
So back to your example, yes, in the extremes, many people who are ultrawealthy may have had those behaviours. But by far and large those behaviours don't make much of a difference to the overwhelming majority of the population, and therefore it's likely that other factors were far more important in terms of making an ultrawealthy person becoming ultrawealthy in the first place. At best, someone who was destined to be ultrawealthy didn't make it because they didn't have those behaviours, but that's more like winning the lottery and being too forgetful to go cash it in, rather than having characteristics that will help you win the lottery in the first place.
In the case of talent and hard work, I think it works the other way: the vast majority of people will see better results in their “normal/broad-middle” lives from increases in hard work or, said otherwise, suffer negative outcomes from lapses in effort [getting fired for lack of attendance or having worse health outcomes from a lack of exercise being concrete examples].
It’s not that interesting or relevant to me whether Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos had talent or work ethic as significant elements of their success. It is interesting and relevant to me as an adult, parent, and mentor the role that talent and hard work play in outcomes for my family and the students I mentor.
I strongly doubt it’s anything other than a positive correlation and believe that the correlation is relevant for normal people.