Comment by tpoacher

This is true, but you are conflating two very different definitions of success.

If anything, your definition is rather tautological: success is the expected outcome of hard work, which cannot be obtained without it.

Whereas in the case of the ultraworthy, the whole point is that hard work cannot reasonably be expected to lead to astronomical wealth in the absence of other factors, and, in the presence of those factors astronomical wealth might even occur without any hard work. So if ultrawealth is one's definition of success, then no hard work is little more than a red herring.