This is usually not true for successful companies, but it's especially not true in facebook's case. Mark Zuckerberg has kept incredibly strong control of facebook, holding more than 50% of voting control even as it's grown to a half trillion dollar company - so he definitely deserves credit for what his company has become.
Also, he has made some strong, unintuitive decisions along the way (no advertising in the first several years, real name policy, dropping out of college, moving to silicon valley, hiring experienced tech executives, buying a dead-simple photo filter app for 1 billion dollars) that can directly be attributed to facebook's success today. It's hard to remember today, but in the first ~5 years of Facebook it was very far from obvious that facebook would dominate the social space.
> no advertising in the first several years,
Standard VC funded startup
> real name policy
This may be the one non-obvious choice.
> dropping out of college
Like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
> moving to silicon valley
ahem, document.location == "ycombinator.com"
> hiring experienced tech executives
How is hiring experienced tech executives unintuitive for a tech company? Google hired Eric Schmidt. Microsoft hired Steve Ballmer.
> buying a dead-simple photo filter app for 1 billion dollars
Paying a fortune for apps with eyeballs was the m.o. of the first dotcom era, and hasn't subsided.
Seems fair. The public drops all of Facebook's failures at Zuckerburg's feet, too. Nobody ever said, "Damn that third-tier middle manager in the reporting department who ordered the database change that made me unable to find my cousin's best friend's uncle's dog's page!"
Why does Facebook even exist? Zuckerberg fought off several cofounders. Do you think Facebook would be what is it if the Winklevoss brothers ran it?