In the case of his example (the basketball player), I've followed his story a bit, and what definitely helped was that his first coach fell in love with him and

In the case of his example (the basketball player), I've followed his story a bit, and what definitely helped was that his first coach fell in love with him and his skill set and gave him a chance. He also famously accidentally made it to the NBA early because his move to a European powerhouse fell through since he had a terrible game when they were watching. My point is the following: almost everyone needs a chance and an environment in which they succeed. Yet especially in tech we talk in absolutes - this person is awesome, this person sucks. This is especially prevalent in young people, which typically consist a large portion of tech, so maybe there's a connection there. Sometimes things don't work out because the people and the organization are a bad fit, sometimes it's just chance. If you want to look at sports analogies, look at coaches. You have coaches that have been successful for a long time, but then in another job they're not successful anymore. Things happen. It doesn't say anything about their person as much as it simply did not work out.