I think the split makes more sense as process versus "heroes" (which is an old view I used to hear at process training classes). Rather than depend on key people able to solve any problem via "heroic" efforts (e.g. all-nighters or long weekends where they rewrite everything or learn an entirely new skill), you follow a reasonably-intelligent but slower process that has worked historically and can make progress even with average contributors.
Management of course loves (perhaps even needs) to make a commodity of employee skills, so process is always pushed early and often. But even the heroes will get burned out or reach a point where the product is just too big to handle otherwise.
> you follow a reasonably-intelligent but slower process
To my knowledge, few early-stage start-up succeeds this way. It's great to think we can make up for the pioneer-style solo contributors with any army of process IC's but I have yet to see that happen during the early years. You can just look at any current tech company and see that's the case - all of them had pioneers at the beginning that pushed forward incredible progress. Google, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Sun, SGI, Facebook are just some recent examples that come to mind.
I can certainly believe that's true because opportunities which can be solved by top-down process-driven progress can be addressed by market leaders and leave little opportunity for startups. Though I don't know that a sample of superstar companies makes for a definitive dataset. I know of multiple companies no one has ever heard of who are dominating their niches (that no one cares about, until you hear how much money they are making), and the most important factor to me looks like risk-taking, good positioning, and good timing by the leadership, not anything special in terms of technical achievements or flexibility by employees.
Management of course loves (perhaps even needs) to make a commodity of employee skills, so process is always pushed early and often. But even the heroes will get burned out or reach a point where the product is just too big to handle otherwise.