My dynamic range of professional experience is high, dropout => waiter => found startup => acquirer => Google.

You're making an interesting point that I somewhat agree with from the perspective of someone was...clearly a little more feral than his surroundings in Google, and wildly succeeded and ultimately quietly failed because of it.

The important bit is "great man" theory doesn't solve lack of dynamism. It usually makes things worse. The people you read about in newspapers are pretty much as smart as you, for better or worse.

I actually disagreed with the Sergey thing along the same lines, it was being used as a parable for why it was okay to do ~nothing in year 3 and continue avoiding what we were supposed to ship in year 1, because only VPs outside my org and the design section in my org would care.

Not sure if all that rhymes or will make any sense to you at all. But I deeply respect the point you are communicating, and also mean to communicate that there's another just as strong lesson: one person isn't bright enough to pull that off, and the important bit there isn't "oh, he isn't special", it's that it makes you even more careful building organizations that maintain dynamism and creativity.