It's difficult for me to comment on something that you saw while in this room when I wasn't in the room, but I'm guessing that much of that had to do with the fact that the kid had actually put in the work and did the experimentation to build this community.

How many of the people in that room could say the same? What communities (or anything else) had they built? If they had built something, did they do it on their own as opposed to being someone brought in after the company was already successful? The kid probably ran circles around everyone because he was an expert (on this subject) among managers / developers / designers and anyone else who could probably do anything but run a successful community / e-commerce site.

I think about this sort of thing as a web developer. How many web developers who build client sites have actually built a successful site? How many designers really know how to design something which can sell? If you haven't done it, then you probably have no clue. But if you have been there, then you probably wouldn't be working for someone else either.