I sincerely mean "Well done" to Carl for what he has achieved, and how he did it, but I think that more than one person who reads this article will quit their job shortly and try and achieve the same thing to the same scale that he did. It is still somewhat a game of chance. Nothing is guaranteed. I've been there, and I know the scene well.
I don't think that's a reasonable interpretation of what makes someone succeed where others fail. There is an element of luck involved, but you can greatly improve your chances by doing things like working hard, understanding the problem you're solving, really talking to your customers, getting a mentor, saying no to distractions, etc. Those things wouldn't have any impact if it really was a lottery.
After three years I'm bound to believe in the lottery. Sometimes those calls do fall out of nowhere and dictate the survival or death of your company (so was our case).
Related to this, there is a Portuguese saying: "A sorte favorece os audazes", meaning: "Luck favors the bold ones". This was derived from the Roman empire, so for sure there has to be some reason to stick around for so long.
(As for execution that doesn't mean anything else that "it succeeded whereas others didn't" if one can't pinpoint a winning execution in advance).