Musk arrived in the US with nothing but a suitcase and a few dollars. He stayed in a youth hostel for a while, and then took on minimum wage jobs. He had zero connections in the US.

5K != 50K

Also, Gates was very successful before MSDOS. IBM would have found him anyway.

You're right that connections matter. Smart people build connections. College is a classic way of doing that. People with similar interests tend to find each other.

What doesn't work is sitting in mom's basement playing video games and moaning about how unfair it all is.