At some point during the 20th century financial success became the primary mechanism of measuring achievement. This isn't necessarily the natural state of things - see counterexamples like Jonas Salk or Grigori Perelman. So my question to you would be: why do we only count innovation that results in someone getting fabulously rich as valuable? Why are we worried about losing the next Tesla or SpaceX to taxation instead of worrying about losing the next Hawking to a fatally flawed healthcare and education system?