The thing is that people like Thiel are actually quite smart. The problem is that people really overrate “smartness”. Smart people are often dumb as hell.
The thing is, people like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos are undoubtedly intelligent, they were all lucky of course but I would argue that no one with below average IQ can use their initial luck to create additional opportunities and generate millions of dollars worth of wealth.
That being said, I feel like we need to be more nuanced when we discuss "intelligence", because I think that it can have a multifaceted definition and people have a wide array of skillets.
So I perhaps a better question would be something along the lines of "Intelligent in what way?"
