This was my thought too, ofc. it's not a popular idea these days that genetics and heredity might have some bearing on success, but it does seem worthwhile looking into..
Anecdote time, I identified the reward-seeking behaviour in my peers in early childhood and didn't understand it, I felt they were acting like dogs, being overtly manipulated to do what the grownups wanted, and I felt disgusted with the idea. (I was not an easy child, but then again, I grew up to be a rather disagreeable adult)
I come from a fairly normal lower middle-class family, but was consistently rewarded, except my response to praise and reward was mostly negative, and to some degree still is. I'm pretty sure my father was the same way, he'd do stuff for their own sake and his own sake, not because someone rewarded him for it.
Unsurprisingly, taking into account how much potential I've been told I have, I'm a relatively low achiever, I'm simply not attracted to reward or winning very much, except maybe winning for its own sake, which just seems dumb.
We know for a fact that genetics has a large influence on intelligence.
We know for a fact that genetics has a large influence on personality.
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We know for a fact that (at scale*) intelligence is the single largest influence on success.
IIRC, we're pretty sure that (at scale*) personality is the second largest influence on success.
I.e., if you measure all the possible things that might influence success and run a principal component analysis, intelligence is the first component and personality the second.
* Nepotism and such exist, but extreme cases are actually not that common.
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It should not be controversial to acknowledge both part A and part B at the same time.
Anecdote time, I identified the reward-seeking behaviour in my peers in early childhood and didn't understand it, I felt they were acting like dogs, being overtly manipulated to do what the grownups wanted, and I felt disgusted with the idea. (I was not an easy child, but then again, I grew up to be a rather disagreeable adult)
I come from a fairly normal lower middle-class family, but was consistently rewarded, except my response to praise and reward was mostly negative, and to some degree still is. I'm pretty sure my father was the same way, he'd do stuff for their own sake and his own sake, not because someone rewarded him for it. Unsurprisingly, taking into account how much potential I've been told I have, I'm a relatively low achiever, I'm simply not attracted to reward or winning very much, except maybe winning for its own sake, which just seems dumb.