Isn't is possible that they got incredibly lucky AND worked their backsides off?
It should be clear that (1) abundant money and (2) abundant brains and (3) abundant luck are ALL necessary criteria for out-sized successes.
Hard working or not, it’s hard to find an example billionaire who, if you look back far enough, didn’t have some lucky event that enabled that success.
That's absurd.
He started by limiting Facebook to colleges so it could scale.
He was able to attract top class engineering talent to help him.
He entered a crowded market and obliterated all his competitors entirely through having a superior social networking product.
He retained control over his own company - avoiding the kind of agist outing that Larry Page and Sergey Brin experienced (i.e. investors who demanded "adult supervision" in the form of Eric Schmidt).
He convinced Instagram to sell, and made it profitable, apparently.
He convinced WhatsApp to sell and probably will make it profitable.
How many people in the tech industry can point to such a track record at all, let alone at Zuck's age? The guy doesn't only seriously understand tech. He also understands people.
For whatever missteps they've made, on the balance it's been absurdly well run.
I think he easily makes the list of the top ten smartest people in tech, along with Bezos, Scott Cook, Jonah Peretti, etc.