Am I Being Naive?

You just redefined success so that it means something totally different. If you want to become a CEO befriending creative artsy types won't help you professionally. Befriending well-connected and successful people will greatly increase the odds of making it yourself.

The world is full of perfectly content people who are losers professionally. Everybody is free to make whatever choices they think will make them happy. I don't see the point of redefining losing as success, though.

I think there's a lot to learn from peers but I don't think dropping your friends has to be part of the equation. Plus I don't think networking is THE thing that makes anyone successful. It's getting down into the core and actually doing the work ... of which you can learn a lot from business peers but it's not one of the same.

So purely definitional argument, but you are defining success in a way that i think is incorrect. Success does not just mean the attainment of money. Success is the ability to aim at a purpose and achieve it. So the original saying is true, if you surround yourself around people who aim for the same purposes and are able to achieve them, then you will also have a better chance of doing the same.