There are periodic &quot;devastating&quot; events in the valley, maybe not quite as bad but there is a boom-bust cycle in the valley does something similar.<p>The selection bias for positive outcomes is pervasive. There were many, many apprentices working for guys like Verocchio, and pretty much the only one we know of is Da Vinci.<p>That said, just because you only hear of the analogies to  Jobs&#x2F;Woz, Ellison, Page&#x2F;Brin, Gates, Zuckerberg, doesn&#x27;t mean there weren&#x27;t plenty of quite successful individuals. Likely, their work was lost as it wasn&#x27;t of enough lasting value to survive the political and socioeconomic upheaval of a half-millenium, but I want to believe some merely-very-good people did well. Sadly there&#x27;s no real way to tell...