I guess that's kind of true. However, once a company involves funding and builds a board of directors full of industry leaders, those same leaders are now on the hook to provide company value in the same way as any other company. In fact, companies have a legal responsibility to not drive it into the ground, or they face potential lawsuits from its investors. Investors do not need to be VCs, and could just be the founders themselves.

However, I do agree with you on another point. At the companies I've worked at, it's the people in the middle of the hierarchy who have impressed me the most. The have incredible hyper fast minds with intimidating levels of reasoning skills. I've always found them to be the true heroes of companies in my mind. They aren't usually there at the beginning and either were hired for their skills, or quickly rose up from the bottom and earned their place.