I'm having trouble coming to the conclusion that these people being unsuccessful in the world has a lot to do with them, for example, being too stupid to overcome their sexual orientation, or because they were not clever enough to abandon their moral resolve...
We are not islands unto ourselves, and we did not evolve as islands unto ourselves.
All I'm saying is that it's more complex than "stack the odds in your favour and you'll always succeed," for a number of reasons... we evolved in groups, we live in a complex world, intelligence is a broad and complex subject, and we don't know everything.
I, personally, don't even want to live in a kind of world where we describe people with strong moral principles, or sexual preferences different to mine, as not clever enough to be successful, regardless of their other achievements.
When you learn beyond the rules of a system and discover the underlying patterns of the system, you are then able to exploit the system to your benefit. There are those who by chance rise or fall, and then there are those who stack the odds in their favor.