[bh42]

eBay is the only on that list not dominated by hackers. Yes even Larry Ellison is a hacker, from Wikipedia:

During the 1970s, Ellison worked for Ampex Corporation. One of his projects was a database for the CIA, which he named "Oracle"."

"Ellison was inspired by the paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems called "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks".[4] He founded Oracle in 1977, putting up a mere $1400 of his own money, under the name Software Development Laboratories (SDL).

And despite a HUGE first mover advantage in a market where size is critical, eBay is floundering.

But I think you and the grandparent are not really disagreeing. A company can succeeded if it is dominated by very competent marketers and sales people... as long as they have something to sell.

The point is competent, passionate people are a great sign of success.

And if you have hackers and sales people, and designers, all of that type in a company... they can STILL be foiled by bureaucracy.