People, in general, do not work for material gain. They work because they have to in order to live, procreate and raise their children. People want a minimum amount of prosperity and economic safety. Beyond that, they want to work in a way and a place that fulfills them. Work itself is fun when done right, and working with others is awesome. Not even the “smart ones” or whatever work mainly for material gain in general. There are an overwhelming amount of counter examples to any variation of your claim. It would be more accurate to say people work for fame and glory, or to get laid (again reproductive success).

But even if what you said was true, it does not justify a complete monopoly. You could have something like “congrats you patented a new idea - if it catches on you will get a free house as a price!”

Of course you know all this and are just arguing facetiously. If “the person who can solve climate change” does anything but trade stocks they would contradict your argument. There is no money in inventing climate solutions. But nice insult to the people who are working on things like that.

Your actual argument is that we reward gambling and non-productive activity too much. That the smartest people are not working towards the survival or wellbeing of humanity, but for… crumbs off the table of the capitalists. That our economic system is not efficient in working towards our shared human values.