[throwaway1748]

It depends on how one define's 'rich', but if you go by the metric of having $1MM+ in the bank, it strikes me there are plenty of opportunities to get there that aren't pure chance.

The most obvious is to join a high-growth startup, particularly after the initial period of high risk. An example of this would be to join Google in the early 2000's, Facebook from 2007 to 2012, Stripe from 2012 to 2014, Uber from 2012 to 2014, etc etc. Today those companies would probably be the ones on this Breakout List, plus a few others like Coinbase and Robinhood: https://breakoutlist.com/

Join one of those companies as a software engineer and there's a very good chance you'll make decent money. You don't have to be that lucky or clairvoyant to identify these opportunities. This current cultural phenomenon of explaining all success as either the result of luck or immoral behavior is seriously troubling...

edit: would appreciate a discussion here rather than just being down-voted.

[ams6110]

The most obvious and reliable way to get $1MM in the bank is to work, live frugally, and invest savings for about 40 years.

[zimpenfish]

You forgot "...and never have anything go wrong".

[throwaway1748]

Yep, that works too. And has little to do with chance.

[anotheryou]

But high-risk means it might be startup #7 or #12 that makes it big. How many stripes and facebooks did not become THE stripe and THE facebook?