[DanielBMarkham]

To put a little finer point on it, what if successful startups have enough randomly-uncontrolled and untracked things happen to them to make them successful as to be not reproducible?

So you do all the right things, and you still only have a 1-in-20 chance. Or the other guy does all the wrong things, and he sells out in two years for 20 Million. A third guy does some good things and some really bad things, still manages to grow and flip, then he writes a book on "How to have a successful startup" that claims to know the answers.

As far as I can tell, this is pretty close to the state of things, and that's okay. It just means 1) you can't give up, and 2) you need to choose your strategy based on this state of affairs.

What you don't want to do is to acknowledge there is randomness, then throw in the towel. Or to go on some jag where you hero worship Zuckerberg or some other rich schmuck simply because the startup lottery hit for them. The truth is much more complicated -- and involves a lot of hard work.