Actually I think that is very on-point for my post... perhaps that was why he was successful with it because he has a passion for it. Or perhaps because, to paraphrase you, the "industry" here is human kind and in that respect he has spent his whole life thinking of the challenges of that industry.

Also, as I said in a comment the other day on a different post [1] I do think that under the right circumstances not being an "insider" in an industry is an asset not a negative.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14146850