Yes?

Growing up in a retirement community you would be foolish to ignore the fact that some things don't start getting good for the first few decades.

Most everybody else doesn't have such overwhelming examples, and fail to realize it until much later in life, if ever.

"Few paintings have lasted the test of time as the great wave of Kanagawa. It took Kanagawa 40 years before he drew the wave he is most known for."

The painting is by Hokusai. Kanagawa is a place.

In fantasy:

J R R Tolkien

Janny Wurts

M A R Barker

Ed Greenwood

A couple software examples off the top of my head are Richard Hipp with SQLite and Matthew Ahrens with ZFS. Both almost incomprehensibly sophisticated projects executed well over decades.

Neither are anything like a solo effort in the way these examples are, and it's hard to say what they'd be like without the long individual involvement.