The people who upvote posts are not the same people who upvote or participate in the comments section.
The cognitive dissonance is actually two different sets of folks voting the way they perceive the world. It just happens that the people who like to comment are a tad more snarky.
If it is a "blanket generalization" as you say, wouldn't it be more productive to quickly name a few counter examples? It should be very easy to do this no? On the other side, a rich and successful person can also be very bad at communicating his/her way of thinking.
I see this on HN more and more and it annoys me very much.
Even putting that aside though:
People who know what they're talking about write books. Oh not all of them, granted, but there are so many humans publishing so much stuff - so many of whom will be experts - that it makes at best limited sense to listen to anyone but the best. The world may be predominantly full of nobodies but that makes it a sorting problem.
Indeed, you could argue that for some literature the search data is rapidly becoming more important than producing anything new for a similar set of reasons.
- Steve Jobs
It is possible that someone who hasn't founded a billion dollar company actually might have something interesting, insightful and useful to say. At least I hope so, otherwise you just condemned innovation to the gallows.