If you look at the actual richest people in the world though, they largely make their wealth off the hard work of others (walmart family), through some kind of gamble (finance), some kind of parasitism (unearned income like interest) or by monopolizing that "magically existing wealth the OP doesn't believe in" (e.g. saudi arabian oil).

For every JK Rowling or Steve Jobs there's maybe 100 who either fully or mostly extracted their wealth while going to great efforts to pretend that they're really just another JK Rowling or Steve Jobs.