Well - usually this is the case. You see - society indeed tends to call successful people geniuses.
The others get to be called "autistic savants".
/sarcasm
Some say that Edison was not a genius, and that Ford was not a genius, etc...
Myself - I'm chock full sick of "geniuses" who would of made it if they would of made it. Thus I'd be way more inclined to root for the Zuck than for the mass of people that claim that he fracked them over.
Rooting for the underdog might be "noble". But lets face it - most of the underdogs don't deserve to win.
We agree that genius !=> success, but I don't think success => genius holds, either. Not everybody who is successful is a genius. Unless we allow some inflation of the use of the word.
Known genii (?) include Einstein, Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, Jimi Hendrix...
What do you think P[genius|success]/P[genius] is? (i.e., how much more likely do you think it is that someone is a genius given that you know they are a success?)
I didn't say that success is sufficient precondition to be perceived as genius. What I tried to imply was that success is necessary precondition to be pronounced as one (by society).
Or it is just random chance. Out of 1 million people trying different things, a few are bound to be successful. At least for stock trading that is assumed to be true.