I disagree. I'm an autodidact, but I'm not rich. As a kid I did things like repeatedly read every volume of the encyclopaedia cover-to-cover. On a tour group a few years ago I was nicknamed "google [vacri]" because I knew a bit about everything and people started asking all sorts of esoteric stuff. But I didn't earn average wage until my late 30s (median wage early 30s) and didn't earn above average wage until this year (42). There's lots of people out there like me, who love learning about all sorts of things, but don't learn about the specific things to make one wealthy.

What makes rich families generationally rich is not autodidactism, but skill transfer and network effects. For example, it's easier to handle money when you've been around people who know a lot about finance and money movements than it is to autodidact-learn about money.