Celebrity culture has troublesome elements, certainly... but successful, influential and/or proactive people DO tend to have more interesting/useful things to say. "Don't get into stupid small talk / lifestyle gushing" seems great, but celebrating thinkers is not a bad thing.
I dunno, man — tbh, I have neither wealth nor professional success; I mostly just tweet things that some people find interesting & now I'm getting asked to go on podcasts. I'm not saying this isn't an issue, but I'm pleasantly shocked re: how much people seem to care about ideas