Recently, I helped one of my portfolio companies make a VP of Marketing hire. The founder asked me early in the process if I thought the candidate was good.
Having not worked with her previously, I didn't know how talented she was firsthand, but what I did have confidence in was that her strategy would be well thought out, and if it wasn't working, she'd analyze why, proactively address it, and describe what steps she would take to find a solution. She struck me as having an disciplined approach to her job, and over time I think discipline wins over raw talent everyday.
Discipline comes with a reasoned approach--a way of breaking down any situation into component parts, addressing each carefully, and sometimes finding help to address the ones you're not able to handle. Startup life comes with a ton of variables and if you're not trying to bring order to the chaos, you won't be able to scale your effort as things get bigger.
Discipline also helps take responsibility off of a founder's plate--and that's something every founder needs and welcomes. When you build in methodologies to your job, the founder that you work for can trust your approach in future situations, and they can make like for like comparisons in your performance over time--essential to oversight and process improvement.
Raw talent, on the other hand, has a limited shelf life. Things change very quickly--so while you might shine in a particular situation, that approach might not work in your next job. Someone who is great at writing blog posts might struggle in the shorter form media that has become more popular. A community manager of fans and users might not have the same knack for inspiring user-owners who are participants in a token-based ecosystem where they benefit from improvements in a system in which they are also stakeholders. A recruiter who is just really good with software developers might not be able to switch to sales recruiting when needed if they don't come with a disciplined approach that can be tweaked for a new situation.
Lastly, talent without explanation of approach and discipline can actually just turn out to be luck. When you hire the person that took X company to success, you might find out that if they can't tell you what it was that worked and why, and the logic of how they approached things when they first started, its possible that the company succeeded in spite of them. Perhaps they weren't really so much the driver versus just coming along for the ride.