I don't think it follows that he feels sorry for himself. This bias in human thought could use correcting for several reasons. It runs a bit like the "just world" fallacy. On one side, you have things like the Republican party, where millions vote against their own interests on the basis of a delusion of control. Then you have the general lack of social safety nets in America, because of the just-world fallacy that people get what they deserve. Then, you have people like Jeff Bezos who credit themselves with deserving their wealth and lead companies with delivery drivers peeing in bottles not to get fired.

As a species, focusing on our competitive advantage has brought us to 100 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday clock: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/ .

You are still buying into the assumption that this person is not "successful" just because they said luck is more important than these abilities.

1. You're projecting all of that. You're even assuming the person you're talking to is not "successful" with no basis whatsoever.

2. You're misusing "sour grapes" -- you don't know what it means.

3. You're hyphenating "sour grapes" -- you don't know how it's spelled.

You're right that I'm projecting. This is based on personal experience many individuals I've known who have made this complaint while lacking self-awareness of how their own attitudes and victim mentality have caused them to miss opportunities, so then their "bad luck" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On your other points, you are wrong. I hyphenated "sour-grapes" due its use as an adjective.

What's your excuse for getting the meaning wrong

But we can control societal factors that cause success to be inequitably distributed. Through worker organization, redistribution of wealth, etc.

It’s just that individuals that have benefited from this false meritocracy have a vested interest in the rest of us “hustling” at the individual level instead of banding together to change the system for everyone.

"Luck playing a part" is not the same as a false meritocracy.

It wasn't claimed to be.

Focussing on communications is a premature optimization when it comes to success, or helping people become more successful.

The most influential aspects of being successful is an ancestral history of wealth and success along with luck.

The comment comes up because it's akin to focussing on some micro-optimizations in bubble sort instead of using quick sort