> Most successful companies have to execute perfectly AND have an some of those extrinsic factors, such as family money, personal connections, good timing, or d

> Most successful companies have to execute perfectly AND have an some of those extrinsic factors, such as family money, personal connections, good timing, or dumb luck. Humans are imperfect so I'm generally wary of characterizations that talk about perfection, especially when used to explain historical phenomena like success. One metaphor that I think is far more useful is to think of businesses as having a mistake budget. Only after you have exhausted your allowance of poor decision-making do you enter a life-threatening situation where your next business decision could spell the end, or a second-chance at seeing any kind of success. Successful businesses are merely more judicious at spending out of their mistake budget, by course-correcting after critical mistakes, compared to their not-so-successful counterparts; rather than saying that successful companies executed perfectly, which is something that is impossible to do in practice.