A ready supply of too much money in startups tends to replace creativity. Companies with money buy solutions by buying consultants, lawyers, clever accountants, publicity agents, marketing studies, and on and on. Small businesses, at least entrepreneurial ones, are formed in order to address problems that money alone cannot solve. The same logic applies to national economies. The more resources a nation has, the more it may drift into complacence.
Abundant resources become cheap, leading to mismanagement and waste.
No matter how badly the nation uses its resources, sheer abundance can bail it out. By contrast, countries without rich material resources are forced to survive by their wits. They have no choice but to be creative. But even a richly endowed economy reaches its limits. The abundance dwindles.