You're assuming that the statement vacuously means "money is never made," which is not what it's getting at. The point is that nobody has ever become a billionaire without manipulating markets, exploiting employees, misleading investors, or otherwise abusing the fabric of society to squeeze wealth out of the rest of the world. The guy who invents the thing isn't the one who gets rich. It's his employer who profits off of it. It's not hard to make money, but it's impossible to make a billion dollars. You can only get that much by taking it.