> The most common engineering mistakes can be fixed with more money.
That applies to pretty much all mistakes.
> Typically some other factors is what makes or breaks a company.
Tech is still pretty much at the top of that list, especially for "tech" companies.
Also Netflix didn't have a head start because of the quality of their streaming tech. They had a head start because of the business decision to invest in streaming before their competitors did. That early decision led to the quality of their library which is what attracted customers which is what allowed them to reinvest in their tech.
There are plenty of other examples. Twitter and Reddit come to mind as companies that had seemingly awful technology that would regularly fail. They succeeded through that. Companies like Facebook have certainly produced some good tech, but almost all of that has come after the company became a success. That is similar to Microsoft who got their big start selling someone else's tech.