If his goal was to amass personal wealth at the expensive of others. But again, it depends on the person. A cab driver that barely makes ends meet can be successful while a multimillionaire isn't. If you wake up and do what you want to do, you are successful.

Absolutely the man was a pioneer of the graft that is payment for order flow. His biggest mistake was living too long if he had died a year or 2 earlier he would have gotten away with it

He was successful, then failed. The two are not mutually exclusive.

He clearly set out to make a lot of money with his scheme, and he did that successfully. Then he failed.