No no no.
According to people commenting here, it's not the team or founders, it's luck.
So you need a way to identify luck. Then you're golden!
According to people commenting here, it's not the team or founders, it's luck.
So you need a way to identify luck. Then you're golden!
The role of luck ("fortune", "fate") in the success of great people is a deep and ancient question, and you should not dismiss it. Machiavelli's Prince is at least 50% about the subject, and Sun Tzu is infatuated with it. Acknowledging luck does not mean dismissing the successful - it's just intellectual honesty.
Let's say there's some stochastic mechanics at work, randomness more than 'luck'. Luck is the attribute of someone, when randomness is an attribute of events, which makes a big difference.
Of course I can understand people citing 'luck' as necessary... but it's more superstition than science.
All in all, it means you can't really know for sure...
It's not exactly the same as a stochastic variable though. It's really any forces that you cannot influence, control, or anticipate.
Great team + great market = great business (for some definition of great, almost always < 1bn)
Great team + great market + luck = billion dollar business.