Earlier quoted context omitted.
Intelligence is hugely important for any kind of outlier success. It's no coincidence that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Jim Simons are undeniably brilliant. The claim that charisma, street smarts, or connections are more important than intelligence is absurd. There are so many fields in which those things just don't matter. If you're not charismatic don't pursue a career in a field that requires charisma. Simple. It's…
Sure they are smart, but you'll find smarter people at any theoretical physics department, if we're talking IQ. Also, I don't think we are talking about rich as in global top 100, what I at least meant more mundane financial success, like earning $1 m a year. At that level, you definitely don't need to be a genius, I'd say if anything a genius is much less likely to make a million a year.
For success within theoretical physics you see, again, exactly how important raw intelligence is. Charisma and people skills are nice, but top researchers are disproportionately brilliant. This isn't nearly as true in those scientific fields where research results are unverifiable. We've seen this in the recent months with the embarrassing quality of epidemiological modeling.
Earning $1m a year doesn't require exceptionalism of any kind, but there is a huge gap between $1m a year and the global top 100. And intelligence becomes more dominant and other traits start to matter less as the stakes increase.