The comments in this whole thread point on a severe lack of understanding around labor laws and ethics. At the same time it attracts the archetypal free-market laissez faire pseudo intellectual.
Labor laws are stupidly complicated and a single one liner from an HN comment is almost guaranteed to be wrong in some way. You shouldn't believe anything you read in an HN comments thread about them, on either side of the issue (including this one, because I'm probably wrong in some fashion too!)
Only after careful readings do you get to "wow this rich smart kid was incredibly lucky"
Instead, all these things work together to promote an illusion of unbiased meritocracy where if you got a clever idea and work hard you'll make it. The rich, smart, and luck get scrubbed out and replaced with a "Flowering of New England" Protestant Work Ethic.
For the more cynical people they go to the likes of Christensen, Geoffrey Moore, Drucker, Steve Blank, Ries & Trout, Blanchard, etc who are certainly not critical of free markets, labor or capitalism in any way.
You walk away from them with a less trusting and more cut throat version of essentially the same story.
So it's constantly reinforced which is why it's really not that surprising that programming has a lot of people who frankly believe in essentially free market magic, unfounded hogwash and other nonsense, it's the only thing on offer.
The myth of fantastic riches that avail themself to those who struggle is essentially one of the most common narrative archetypes there is. It's thousands of years old, even the cornerstone of many religions.