This is not even close to true. Have you heard of compound interest? Investing 2 mil per month in even the worst performing index funds gets you 1bil in 16 years. 2 bil in 22 years, 4 bil in 30. your 40 year figure is more like 11 billion. Thats how and why rich people are rich, they don’t just have cash lying around they put it to work investing in other companies or more often their own. Without these investments many other companies especially startups simply wouldn’t exist. Billionaires employ either directly or indirectly a huge percentage of the population.