As the author of the article, I really like your counter-point here.
Because I do agree -- in all startups most "stuff" is being executed poorly (if at all), with issues everywhere, and yet when you get the right 1-2 things _really_ right, that can overwhelm all those problems.
So, perhaps the charitable view is that this piece is a fun way of getting at the usual ideas of things which derisk a startup -- e.g. talking to customers rather than coding in a hole -- and indeed many of these things will surely be a net-positive.
And yet, the "80% of winning" might indeed be correct for amateur chess and amateur tennis, yet it's not "80%" for startups, and that bit is rhetorical.
Because I do agree -- in all startups most "stuff" is being executed poorly (if at all), with issues everywhere, and yet when you get the right 1-2 things _really_ right, that can overwhelm all those problems.
So, perhaps the charitable view is that this piece is a fun way of getting at the usual ideas of things which derisk a startup -- e.g. talking to customers rather than coding in a hole -- and indeed many of these things will surely be a net-positive.
And yet, the "80% of winning" might indeed be correct for amateur chess and amateur tennis, yet it's not "80%" for startups, and that bit is rhetorical.