I think that today’s world makes it harder to stand out as a genius, even with more opportunity. Most modern composers with any public name recognition are movie composers, like Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, and John Williams. Absolutely incredible scores without their movies, but are any Mozart level? I bet the Mozart level ones are probably well known in the orchestral world, but none of them are probably very well known outside of it.

And as far as scientists and mathematics, those roles have been pretty much entirely commercialized and corporatized. Even stuff for the public good is largely funded through grants and private investors, so the geniuses are always beholden to others who will take the real credit.

All of the recognized “geniuses” that I can think of are business-savvy grifters like musk and bozos and Zuck, all riding the coattails of the real innovators. Plus, these three specifically, if you look at their vanity projects and shit, they’re all pretty insane.