I think you have a naive understanding of the theme in these paragraphs. Competitive situations do NOT have a strong correlation with innate ability. Outside fa

I think you have a naive understanding of the theme in these paragraphs. Competitive situations do NOT have a strong correlation with innate ability. Outside factors will often have as much or more influence than innate ability (practice beats talent, as the saying goes). I suppose it depends on which 'competitive situation' we are talking about. That is the point of this comparison, though, saying 'competitive situation' leaves things overly vague. To take a concrete example, 9/10 startups fail (or something like that, I'm sure someone has the correct ratio). Does that mean that 9/10 founders are innately unfit to found a company? It seems much more likely that success is a combination of getting the right people working on the right project at the right time in the right place and being noticed by the right people. Even the well educated, connected, entrepreneurial founder might fail because of any one of those (or other) factors. The first paragraph explains this concept succinctly and beautifully. The fact that the second does not convey this meaning while technically containing the same information, is the point of this article.