Let's go back a bit and call it "the rise of the accountant". I don't think there's been rich programmers in significant numbers to for enough time to have moved the genetic needle all that much.

But widen the category a bit and you'll find that the rewards for a relatively obsessive attention to detail and being comfortable with numbers have shifted in the past five centuries or so, from a one way trip to the monastery (if you were lucky) to a comfortable middle class life style, family included.