> Also, I find the "years of struggle" trope irritating. Many of people live on beans while working 70-hour weeks and don't end up rich. Plenty of those people work at companies whose executives do get rich.

Your logic is flawed. When I start a company I will be leaving my cushy job that pays damn well and living low in hopes of making it big one day. A founder making a deliberate choice here is very different from unskilled/unlucky/not-qualified (in whatever sense) people living on the beans. They don't have a choice. They are not part of the game.