Your problem will be definitional. The Rock earned ~ $65mm last year. Is he a 'one man company'? I guarantee he's billing through a services entity...
1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2016/08/25/the-...
1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2016/08/25/the-...
He (alone?) does the actual "work" that brings in the bread. The other people could be considered contractors. I mean, a single SaaS app developer still doens't "work alone" when you consider that she might be buying services like hosting and/or payment processing.
It's hard to really find the line between alone and not.
To further blur things, in my examples for a celebrity, agents still contribute to bringing in the actual work yet (as you defined) yet they literally are an external service one would pay for. And what about the script writing? Directors, studio editors, cameramen and sound technicians? They are all creating the product too - without which The Rock wouldn't be in business.
I think if there is one thing we can agree on, it's that even the most fiercely independent of people still depend on the work of others. Nobody can work entirely in isolation. Or at least without themselves living in isolation. But that's really more a philosophical tangent rather than an answer to the question originally posted to HN :)
I like philosophical arguments! ^_^
* Sometimes it's done out of necessity so the changes are glossed over (Dumbledore changed characters due to Richard Harris sadly passing away, or when actors/actresses get fired from soap operas),
* sometimes it's made a feature (eg Doctor Who regenerations)
* and sometimes they'll just introduce a new leading character to replace the old one (eg the crime comedy "Death in Paradise" which has had 3 different leading inspectors as the previous actors have left the show).
Few people, if indeed anyone, are irreplaceable in their careers.
To give another example, Cristiano Ronaldo is said to have been the highest paid sports star last year, with estimated earnings of $88 million.
https://www.forbes.com/profile/cristiano-ronaldo/?list=athle...
As laumars pointed out there's the question of whether you include assistants.
A singer writing his own songs or an actor always looking for roles to play might be a business, while typically they are controlled by a record company or movie studio, which again isn't really like running a business on your own.