Yes but if you borrow like a maniac from credit cards and default on everything and live in a van but still start a successful software business you still get wealthy.

My point being that actually owning that successful business is the mechanism for wealth. Avoiding frivolous spending can be very, very helpful to achieving that status, as you point out correctly, but it isn't actually the status itself.

This article and many others seem to be unable to make that key distinction.