We look at the successful billionaires and begrudge them their ridiculous sums of money, failing to see the tens of thousands of people who took similar risks and work just as hard, amounting to nothing. Wealth is the reward for being the rare individual that contributed something valuable enough to the world that we voluntarily handed over our hard-earned money. People don’t see the challenges or failures that preceded the significant success, so they feel bitterness at the supposed invisible force that gave this stranger such a vast fortune.

Inventors tend to be tenacious and undesirable, especially in the face of error. They also often benefit from a sense of playfulness, at least during the early stages of innovation when experimentation is crucial. A process of natural selection takes place, where the evolutionary pressures are whether or not enough people agree that something is valuable. If the new-fangled device for farming is clumsy or impractical, farmers won’t award the inventor of it for effort. They’ll continue doing what they were doing until somebody comes along with something better.

Perhaps America’s success can partially be attributed to their tolerance of error and the low penalties incurred for one’s business failing. In most states, the bankruptcy laws allow entrepreneurs to “fail fast and fail often”. States with homestead exemptions, granting business owners to keep their house if their business fails, have shown more innovation than those without them.