Your argument is good if you just follow it to the obvious (if inconvenient) conclusion. Despite so many people “having the answers,” no one can replicate it reliably. And even the ones who can likely wouldn’t be able to if you removed capital from the equation. The clear explanation is: luck.
But of course luck tends to strike when you’re working hard and consistently, so it’s not totally out of one’s hands.
The biggest single discriminator that the Y Combinator people talk about, which I agree with, is doing the right things first without regard for scale. Most developers will immediately jump to some framework so that they can prop up some web app in the shortest time and immediately go into promotions and then struggle with scale when they need to scale.
I had this big app that tried to solve for full decentralization of universal file system access from a browser. I wrote my own end-to-end test automation tool and focused all my energy on software execution performance. These things allowed me to prove out new ideas and identify regression in about 8 seconds on a single machine or about 2 minutes on 5 machines talking to each other. Most people won't invest in that. I could perform a massive refactor across dozens for files and hundreds of lines without regression in about 2 hours. At work, at that job at that time, I spending more than 2 weeks for tiny refactors that were littered with regressions and having to clean up other people's messes.
Worse, is that most people recognize when they are not performing well, especially if it is anywhere from 10-100x less well. The normal go to place is either sympathy or an echo chamber. High performers don't do that. They aren't trying to impress people with their awesomeness or seeking sympathy when it falls apart. They just build what they need at great expense because its something they can have that others won't have.
One answer to that question might be character. Angela Ducksworth has a book called, "Grit". It is a lot like character study, which the OG explicitly expressed their disinterest for. My intuition is no matter how well you can describe the steps for success, success is not replicable. If true, that would explain why there are hundreds of self books, thousands of coaches, and only a handful of people who can consistently excel.
Having said that, I hesitate to say that there are only a few people in the world who are exceptional due to a constraint I would describe as "genuine article". How depressing a thought that would be.
Carpe diem! Floor the gas pedal, and see how fast you can go. Maybe you'll break all expectations and fly into space.