This visionary bullshit is exactly that, bullshit.
I'm absolutely not comparing Sam Altman to any of these leaders, but just to illustrate how much vision and leadership does matter. Consider how stupid these statements sound:
"Jesus didn't build any churches, those were all built by brick layers and carpenters!"
"Pharaohs didn't build a single pyramid, those were all built by artists and workers!"
"Abraham Lincoln didn't free any slaves, he didn't break the chains of a single slave, that was all done by blacksmiths!"
"Martin Luther King Jr. didn't radically improve civil rights, he never passed a single law, that was all done by lawmakers!"
"Sam Altman didn't build ChatGPT, he didn't create a single ML pipeline, it was all done by engineers!"
It's a hard fact of life that some specific individuals play more important roles in successful projects than others.
It's Ilya who conceived of the vision for ChatGPT. Sam is a sales and fundraising guy. He was endorsed by Thiel and Musk.
While raising money is certainly important, let's not confuse that for product vision. There are enough guys that can do what Sam does.
There are much larger armies of highly qualified scientists and engineers at Google, Microsoft, and other companies and none of them created ChatGPT. They still haven't been able to even fully copy it with years of effort, unlimited budgets, and the advantage of knowing exactly what they're trying to build.
It should really give you pause to consider why it happened at OpenAI and not elsewhere. The answer is that the CEO of OpenAI created the incentives, hiring, funding, vision, support, and direction that made ChatGPT happen.
Leadership makes all the difference in the world.