Business Success: Luck, Not Merit.

Building a successful business relies heavily on luck, not merit. Founders face a chicken-and-egg problem: they need users for product-market fit but need product-market fit for users. Financially constrained founders get fewer guesses, reducing their chances. About 42% of failed startups built something nobody wanted. Valuable knowledge from past failures is rarely shared. Universities can't produce practical business data, and businesses have no incentive to share it. Some companies like Netflix (Chaos Monkey) and GitLab (public handbook) shared operational findings without harm. More sharing would lower startup costs and benefit the economy. Tax credits or grants could incentivize publishing case studies and post-mortems.