Sometimes, yeah. Comedy is one such example: it gives huge rewards to a few celebrities, while a lot of other equally talented people just never manage to be in the right place at the right time.
It's perhaps especially true for comedy. You can see it when you watch a comic on TV: they're much less funny than in person, because you're not surrounded by a lot of other laughing people. The same routine by the same person can get little more than snickers when done at somebody's open mic night -- unless somebody recognizes that they're famous. Celebrity reinforces itself.
Burnham is very talented and I'm sure he worked like crazy to market his work. But he will also tell you the names of a hundred others who are equally talented and worked equally hard, but you've never heard of them. The market for celebrity is very fickle, heaping huge rewards on a few, but drop off rapidly for people who aren't in the hump of the long tail.
Warren Buffett isn't profiting from celebrity in the same sense, but there's a similar effect where the biggest winners are lucky as well as smart. Their advice often doesn't take that into account, and it's important to measure that in your appetite for risk.
I think those are good points. I don't know much about comedy or entertainment but I get the same feeling that getting "chosen" matters more than your content.
On the other hand, great work doesn't happen by accident.
Great businesses are a result of good management. Good products are results of good design.
Those don't happen by accident, just like a great program doesn't write itself.
You may not be a warren buffet, due to limited opportunities. But, you could leave someone like that penniless and nameless and i'm sure he could leverage his skills and knowledge to be "successful", even if not a mega-billionaire.
Marketing and sales is an important component which is left out (if you care about making money). That's also something you can deliberately work on and improve.
Absolutely. Talent, luck, and hard work. All 3 are required to strike it big. I've known extremely talented and hard working people who did well, but never got to the super star level.
