I've always thought this had some parallels to athletes who use performance enhancing drugs.

The entrepreneur or athlete is so aware of all the hard work and long hours that they put in that they often down play the other factors that play a part in their success.

This often leads them to be defensive when these external factors are brought up as being part of their success.

You can't blame them, though. Its a basic flaw in human mental machinery ;the we look and create narratives and stories to data compress and make sense of our world. If someone asked you about your greatest achievements, how likely would you be to attribute anything to your era and place you were born in, your random early childhood experiences, etc?

Great point. Wonder if there's an analog here with the building of technical platforms. Hind-sight is 20/20 and explaining how one feels he/she made tech decisions could come out similarly subjective. But asking about the story behind the platform might tease out more color.

I think so. In my interview with Emmett of twitch.tv, he mentioned that if he asks customers, "what should I build for you?" the responses are pretty useless.

So instead he teases out what their motivation is (personal expression or making money by broadcasting or something else) and what's keeping them from achieving it (lack of clear stats, or difficulty publishing, etc). That helps him figure out what to build.

I think most people are afraid to admit how much of their success is attributable to luck and being the right man in the wrong place.