How many tried? Lots of people don't actually want to do that. I know lots of very wealthy people who are not at all interested in increasing their wealth or running companies or being famous.

The cemetery of defunct space startups is pretty big, including the one founded by John Carmack.

He in fact forced the founders of Tesla out of the company to call himself founder.

You'll see that I noted that in my original comment

Just look at the guys coming from paypal and see what they did. More than a few household names.