You're right, the reality is far more nuanced than what's presented here. Setting aside the current Color fiasco, Bill Nguyen is a highly accomplished entrepreneur with close to $1B worth of startup exits in his past [1][2]. To say that he's gotten rich from "who he knows", and "marketing" is spitting in the face to a guy who's built real genuine successes from scratch, when he was a nobody. He is not making off like a bandit with the current $41M investment. This is turning out to be a failure from which he will not benefit financially in any significant way.
"He grew up in Houston, the son of Vietnamese immigrants whom he says he consistently disappointed. They wanted him to score A's. Instead, he scored an unpredictable mix of A's and F's, and earned a 1.4 grade point average in his senior year. He was easily distracted and confused."
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen [2] http://www.fastcompany.com/1784823/bill-nguyen-boy-bubble