Huge financial resources aren't to be sniffed at. They increase one's range of possibilities and opportunities immeasurably. For example, Assange wouldn't have been required to do so much 'spade work' himself. He could have kept in the background and used journalists on a newspaper he owned to publish the material and revelations, creating a safe distance between himself and the platform. Unfortunately for him, because the press has been taken over by the state, he had to create Wikileaks and Assange had to stand on the frontline himself confronting the state and the media, both of whome saw him as a threat to the system.