My answers are yes, yes (everyday gets opportunities every day, but as Edison observed "too often they are dressed in overalls and look like work"), mix of abil

My answers are yes, yes (everyday gets opportunities every day, but as Edison observed "too often they are dressed in overalls and look like work"), mix of ability and practice, and I agree that people are different and different teams get different opportunities. But it sounds like relying on luck and innate differences is an excuse for not learning from your mistakes. This is a "Random Walk" model for startup success where you begin at a random point (your innate abilities) and wander buffeted by luck in some kind of entrepreneurial Brownian motion. Clearly luck plays a role, but I believe, like Pasteur, that "inspiration only favors the prepared mind." You have to know what you are looking for in advance. And it turns out this skill can be learned as well. Reasonable men may differ, but I think there is considerable evidence that experience helps startups differentiate beyond naive ability or luck, and that deliberate practice prevents you from experiencing the same event over and over without learning from it. For another take on this see Carol Dweck's mindset model at http://www.mindsetonline.com/ http://www.mindsetonline.com/ which documents research that folks who believe that effort makes a difference learn faster than those who trust to innate ability. What's most pernicious about this belief is that it can lead you to manage people in a way that doesn't admit of their ability to improve.