startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model
This definition explains why funding is the single best predictor of startup success: it permits the startup to survive until it can hit upon a successful product. Because most products fail. Even a product that succeeds depends as much or more on market context beyond the perception of its creators as it does on its intrinsic value. People are important, but they can only stick around as long as there is funding. (Of course, funding depends heavily on social networks, so in that sense the people are important.) But as the author acknowledges in the article, the fact that VCs generally don't understand why one startup succeeds and another fails does not change the fact that they control the single greatest differentiator: money.