One cannot short a startup. Therefore, before investing in a company, it is important to note not only who has aleady invested in it (and whether investors are likely to have performed due diligence), but also who has refrained from investing.
For success, wishful thinking is insufficient, although typically necessary. Charisma is neither necessary nor sufficient. Nor is dropping out of college. One of the essential skills that one learns in college is the ability to identify nonsensical discourse, even one's own.
The society will extrapolate one’s successes and failures onto similar others. One has no moral obligation to internalise this externality. By contrast, those who regard themselves as being in the business of social engineering may wish (but, again, have no moral obligation) to account for this externality. Lawyers do so when they seek a perfect victim to file a civil rights suit.
Countries have historically competed in military might, not in product markets. International law enforcement is weak. International mobility is costly. It is simpler to steal than to innovate.
Companies are not inherently different but are constrained by the state’s monopoly on violence. Even then, whenever not controlled by a mob, companies control armies of lawyers, media, and politicians.
Any remotely fair, efficient, and reliable mode of social organisation is likely have much redundancy, seek excessive compromise, and, so, be rather far from the first-best.
