Is it a recent phenomenon that those who become wealthy (get rich) are nerds, or has it always been thus?

When you look at the richest people today, most of them come from tech. In finance, the wealthiest in recent years tend to be in quantitative fields, and now with AI, this trend is even stronger. In the past, it felt like the richest people succeeded more through business intuition than academic or technical expertise, less “book-smart” and more street-smart. Maybe I’m only focusing on certain industries, but in terms of recent wealth creation, tech and quantitative finance seem to be the fastest paths to making a lot of money. The main exception would be people who build powerful personal brands (e.g., Gymshark).