Smart people can also change the world by working on climate change, improving healthcare costs, addressing the energy crisis, coming up with new ways to mass manufacturer consumer goods at reasonable prices without shipping things halfway around the world and back, help an increasingly aging population do basic stuff.... the metaverse (maybe crypto?) were just natural evolutions of existing business models, but these weren't the world changing things people need, so capitalism (the brutal nature is why it works) didn't reward it.

If these smart people spend their brain energy to address these needs, which the world actually needs, they'll find success again, and the world will be changed in the way it needs to be... and frankly that's the way capitalism is supposed to work. Changing the world is only rewarded when people want it.