As an independent person, which all of us seemingly are, I read your article and quickly decided it was an opinion piece. There are no facts to back that up and if there are please produce them. I achieved all my dreams on my own. Any bridges you refer to as help can be bought and paid for. Bridges as used in this post are basically getting help from any loyal people in your life and the older you get the more you realize that overtime people and their loyalties have changed. So in my humble opinion bridges are not needed to achieve your goals. Bridges tend to become one way as people using you for you knowledge with out gratitude or compensation. I like to think that any bridges are built upon loyalty and possibly friendship to an extent in this case talking about succeeding the bridge could also be the companies you do business with. Again, there is no need for for bridges to succeed in life. This I disagree with you on. I know plenty of people who have a lot of bridges to friends and it also seems that these people use the so called bridge as a one way bridge. Would it hurt to burn these kinds and rely solely on my 2 friends and my 2 children. I have burnt every bridge I have ever had as it relates to people/friends with the exception of 2. If we use the company analogy those you cannot burn even if you wanted to because they generally charge a toll to use their offerings. So as a person who is 61years old and achieved every dream I have ever had (Dream Big) so you are always motivated to do something.
On a personal note friends and acquaintances I have come across in my years there are only 2 friends that I would not burn bridges with one is a friend who I happened to save his life when we were 15 and 17 years of age (with my friend being the older) and my other friend we worked together for 20+ years side by side and it was a hellish job to say the least. Quite honestly I cannot understand how people have groups of friends (I understand it in your 20's to mid 30's ) but once you have children of your own the bridges may not burn down but they are dilapidated to the point they have fallen and there is no reason to try and find my way across the span of the bridge. So I would argue that there are many reasons to burn bridges with the biggest one being friends they seemingly get jealous of your success and disassociate themselves with you or the bridge is simply one way you are the one dishing out favors relentlessly. It is then you realize the success you achieve in life depends more on yourself that anyone or anything on the other side of the bridge.

Note: I am not disagreeing with you I am just stating that it is hard for me to see someone using the word successful and bridges which are mainly friends as companies you pay for. You even do that for a few of your friends that you will burn the bridge given enough time. Also I don't know your age so it is hard to estimate at what point of life you are in.
After re-reading your post it is possible you are just talking about the steemit community and I would agree with you. On the major players that make technology happen as far as the steemit community. However when I re-read your post, you generalized success and then went on to say "A person who has competence but doesn’t have bridges cannot achieve success" says who? I would say a person who has competence doesn't need bridges you can always find answers or help that would fill the void of whatever is across the bridges you describer here, so I do take issue with that being a self made man with a wife of 43 years and 2 children and not taking help from anybody I didn't pay for!
Secondly you said "A person who has bridges but doesn’t possess a certain about of competence cannot accomplish anything." Again I take issue with that as you are implying that someone has no competence, if you would have said drive or desire I might have agreed. It is kind of like a college degree, there are literally thousands upon thousands of companies that will not promote you past a certain level without one. So I say who would you rather work with, Someone who has 20 or 30 years experience or someone that put in the time (you don't know their grades and college is pretty much like high school put in four more years and you get a piece of paper saying you are competent. If you believe this to be true then there is something missing from you bridge scenario!

Keep up the good work. I did enjoy reading it, even if I am taking it out of context, I can simply state my case and agree to disagree!

Note: This is just a different side of the story from and old ma. The original author I have not followed but like his writing. In my case I am talking real world day to day living. It may be that he was talking about simply building in the steemit, Dtube and other technology based communities. In which case I agree with him wholly and without question! I never come in just to tear somebody down. I only post when I read something and feel there is another side to the story.
Thanks for your time!