> Building great products

This is where they are failing.

> Plenty of SV is building below average products with exceptional talent.

Yes, you can hire exceptional talent and give them poor directions, resulting in poor products.

But to hire mediocre talent and still produce competitive products you must have an unfair advantage of some sort. The Windows and Office monopolies gave Microsoft that unfair advantage. But it is becoming clear that this unfair advantage does not extend to AI.