Not necessarily; one way to become more successful than normal is to take risks that have a chance of a big payoff, even if they have a negative expected value, and then get lucky.
See also "Lucky Fools and Cautious Businessmen", a paper that I can't seem to find on the internet, which argues that entrepreneurship, in general, is a negative expected value proposition for the individual.
one way to become more successful than normal is to take risks that have a chance of a big payoff
That was my point, that being risk-seeking causes one to be wealthy, rather then that being wealthy causes one to be risk-seeking.
In the open thread, moridinamael hypothesized that LWers would be willing to take more risks in order to become rich if they had a financial safety net. This seems like an idea worth exploring further.
What would you do if you had a financial safety net (maybe a year's worth of living expenses) to fall back on if your venture failed?