Until that happens, we cannot claim that luck has nothing to do with it.
I never claimed that. This argument's always been about "how much", not whether.
I believe luck has a small part; you seem to argue that it has a huge part. I argue that in light of all the explicit decisions that facebook made, the role of luck is smaller than you appear to suggest.
You state that other facebook competitors also took explicit decisions. Merely taking explicit decisions does not provide results. You also have to make the right decisions and execute in the right way.
You are correct, I believe the risk of dropping out to do a startup is large enough as to be considered reckless.
We can argue about Facebook all day, as many have before, but even that in itself lends support to the notion that it was mostly luck. We cannot agree on and point to any specific idea, or combination of ideas, that lead to Facebook's success over others. More, we cannot show that Zuckerberg actually held any such idea as the basis for his actions. Targeting schools? Convenience. Targeting social? A common idea at the time. Using php? Convenience and a common choice at the time. Not all successes are due to some sort of genius. Many are just unexpected and happy results.
I never claimed that. This argument's always been about "how much", not whether.
I believe luck has a small part; you seem to argue that it has a huge part. I argue that in light of all the explicit decisions that facebook made, the role of luck is smaller than you appear to suggest.
You state that other facebook competitors also took explicit decisions. Merely taking explicit decisions does not provide results. You also have to make the right decisions and execute in the right way.