I am financially independent and it is almost entirely due to luck. I was in a stable career as an AI researcher when, in 2000, pretty much on a whim, I decided to apply to work at an obscure little startup company called Google. It was the only startup I had ever applied to at that point (until then my ambition had been to become a university professor). Since 2005 I have participated as a principal in half a dozen other startups. They all failed. Being in the right place at the right time makes a much bigger difference than effort or ability. Working hard and being skilled can help tilt the odds in your favor, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for success.
Around 2001, a cohort of recent grads was working on an obscure experimental thing at Microsoft that never went anywhere. Half of the group went to Mountain View, and half stayed in Redmond. The first half are all millionaires now, and the second half are just well-off.
You can look at this from many directions. Did the natural hustlers hustle their way to Google, while the naturally complacent stayed put? Did the Googlers just go there because that's where their friends went, or because they thought it was cool? Did the Mountain View people catch the fever after the fact, and become hustlers, while the Redmond people absorbed the relatively relaxed culture there? Did everyone just go where they thought was best and then it turned out one of those places was saturated in money?
I would be shocked if more than 10% of those recent grads who were working at Microsoft in 2001 and stayed in the industry anywhere are not now millionaires. (It's not that high nor noteworthy of a hurdle for our industry.)
What you've described is essentially just a high risk strategy. Work at a bunch of different start ups, and hope that eventually you end up working for one that doesn't fail, and yields some returns.
The greatest predictors for success in life are industriousness and intelligence. Over time (and that's important, over time), the intelligent and industrious are expected to beat the odds, and achieve success. Ultimately there are so many outside forces in life that are beyond your control, that achieving success is always predicated on some level of luck. But eventually, smart and industrious people will rise higher than others. Life typically lasts for many years, you can blame luck if you want for any particular individual outcome (even though that's not entirely productive), but not for having a major influence on lifetime success.
You were an AI researcher in 2000 and decided to take a risk and join a startup, this is a very poor definition of luck.
Luck does always belong in the conversation - "All great events hang by a hair, I believe in luck, and the wise man neglects nothing which contributes to his destiny"
The lucky part was that I joined the one startup that turned into the runaway success out of the many hundreds that were available to choose from at the time that failed. This was during the height of the first dotcom boom. Next Big Things were a dime a dozen.
Of course after someone has achieved success they put it down entirely to innate worth, effort, skill and so forth. Likewise plenty who have deserved success have been wiped out by unlucky timing of the dot com bust, credit crunch, fraud.
Yes persistence pays, but however unpopular it might be around here, we are nearly all one or two rolls from disaster - be that business failure, major illness, or whatever, that can easily escalate into life ruining proportions.
I am far less inclined to simply spout "work hard and make your own luck" now than I would certainly have done in my 20s. Thirty more years of experiencing life, and seeing what sheer luck, good and bad, has done to friends, family and their businesses has changed my perspective on luck quite dramatically.
I'm not that convinced about the hard work part, it strikes me it's a hangover from the protestant work ethic. If you can't achieve something in 40 hours a week why would adding another 20 make much difference. If anything it might make it more difficult.
Also the ingredients of hard work, I.e. preservance, energy, focus, etc are themselves dependent on luck - having the right genes, growth environment , health , etc - so that's another type of luck.
I think if you took the time to research obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc, in America vs. other countries, you would not be spouting this nonsense. Americans have the ability to get in a bad car wreck and live because we have incredible emergency care. That's it. That is not health.
I'm happy to tell you the good news that the overwhelming majority young adults in American are not suffering from debilitating health problems nor have their lives been saved by incredible emergency care.
> the environment in the US is the most conducive in the world to success. Stop making excuses
I think it depends on what is success. It's at least arguable about the us being the most conductive to success. We have less regulation in a lot of ways than other western countries, but if you have troubles, like say a car wreck that hurts you, it sucks to be in the us compared to say germany. In the us, there are a lot of built in advantages for the existing successful companies, it's harder to challenge. For example there are few large internet providers. But at the same time, there are many more new startup companies here, and there seems to be much more risk tolerance.
And you can overexert yourself in the same amount of time, leading to deterioration in the rest of your life and eventually handicapping even your ability to work hard. I feel like this is a quite complex issue and I'm not really sure why so many people try to give one line advices on it.
After over 30 years of work, and business, I have become vastly more tolerant and understanding of those who were diligently "out there swinging" until it broke them, and sometimes their families too. There comes a point where anyone will break.
What of those who were swinging improperly due to their year of birth and graduated during a recession? The effect of taking something when jobs are not available can lock them into poorer quality jobs for decades. Earnings for some never catch up over a whole career, at least according to some studies. Potential employers only take interest in your previous role, and current salary, so this isn't unduly surprising.
Of course you have to be "in the game", but the effects of your swings, regardless of how many, are often outwith your control.
One point of contention I have with this article is that it mentions that many CEOs were born during certain months and have names starting with certain letters. The mere mention of the phrase I am about to use always draws the ire of the HN crowd, but I see a big correlation/causation issue with that specific data point.
As for the larger point of the article, I always frame this conversation in this way: if you were lucky enough to be born in a first world country, you can become a millionaire through hard work with relatively little luck involved, but you have to get very lucky to become a billionaire.
In other words, the kind of large scale success that it takes to become a billionaire is nearly always dependent upon numerous factors outside of your own control, any one of which could easily put billionaire status out of reach. Becoming a single digit millionaire, however, can be done by anyone of at least average intelligence, that is willing to work long and hard in a field that has historically paid its workers well. Jobs in technology, finance, medicine, and even some trades (master plumbers/electricians etc.), pay well enough that anyone who manages their money properly should be on track to become a millionaire at some point during their lifetime.
"One point of contention I have with this article is that it mentions that many CEOs were born during certain months and have names starting with certain letters. The mere mention of the phrase I am about to use always draws the ire of the HN crowd, but I see a big correlation/causation issue with that specific data point."
On the point of birth month, there is a cause. Kids born before the cutoff year for kindergarten are younger than kids born after the cutoff. At that age, every month of development makes a big difference in social skills, which leads to more leadership opportunities. Obviously it's not a direct causation but this point should not be ignored.
"As for the larger point of the article, I always frame this conversation in this way: if you were lucky enough to be born in a first world country, you can become a millionaire through hard work with relatively little luck involved, but you have to get very lucky to become a billionaire."
I agree with you and I would add that "hard work and thriftiness" lets most people with average luck become millionaire. This is the sentiment of the Millionaire Next Door.
This is exactly what Malcom Gladwell talks about in Outliers: The Story of Success. He starts off by mentioning how hockey players have this age advantage since they are more physically mature than people born in other months and cut off by our artificially created system.
Makes sense for hockey players given the investment they need in development from a young age and how that investment is directly based on physical evaluation. For CEOs that pattern doesn't exist save perhaps in the mind of status-obsessed parents.
If you're the oldest individual in your elementary class, you've got ~11 months more development than your worst-off competitors. You carry that age advantage throughout every level of education you go through, allowing you differential access to awards, accolades, special opportunities, etc.
When development evens out following full development, you're already past the majority of the educational sorting mechanism - you've been scoring higher and formed by your experiences as a high performing student throughout.
I totally agree with you, but I'd add one additional thought. While being born in a first world country is a huge leg up - I think it assumes you're raised by a competent single parent or reasonably competent parents.
Having parents who understand hard work (and can show you what it looks like) and good financial habits makes it easier for you to develop those same traits as an adult, in my experience.
You’re certainly correct. That isn’t to say that people raised in less fortunate circumstances can’t learn good financial habits (and to make good life choices, for that matter). But you are correct that those who are raised by competent parent(s) definitely have an advantage over those who weren’t.
Just for clarification, when you mean millionaire, do you mean a positive net worth of $1,000,000 or just having earned $1,000,000 in some arbitrary period of time?
I think that the point was that everyone can make conscious choices that will lead to millionaire status. Avoidable mistakes can derail that, but cautious living can eliminate the luck factor.
Anyone born in the US, regardless of social status or ability, can become educated as an electrician, gain work experience up to master status, then incorporate as a subcontractor business to employ both less-experienced and less-ambitious electricians. Between the value of the business and index fund investments, and judicious use of insurance, that person will be a millionaire (by net worth) by the time they reach age 65.
If you choose to work at McDonald's when you graduate high school instead of the journeyman program of IBEW Local X, or even choose a less valuable skill in the building trades, the path is more difficult, more competitive, and less forgiving, but is still theoretically possible. If you go to college and get an engineering degree, the path is easier, but requires more up-front investment. If you go to college and get a degree in art history, that might be one of those avoidable mistakes that I mentioned earlier.
One of the decisions that must be made is "how many children will I support?" If you want to be a millionaire, the correct answer is zero. If you abandon completely the idea of raising children, you can certainly be a millionaire by the time you retire. The process will usually include establishing yourself as a small-business owner with near-guaranteed local demand. Most professions simply do not earn enough to provide sufficient margins for savings and investment unless you also employ the labor of someone besides yourself.
I'm not sure that they can. There's luck in that you don't hurt your back doing a trade, or get electrocuted, or you don't show up to work one day to find the doors closed because of something the boss did. There's luck in that someone doesn't invent something that makes your field or your customer base obsolete; wal-mart and online shopping seemed to have destroyed malls and mid-tier retailers, with ripple effects to many businesses.
There's luck in that the government doesn't decide to cut down; I had a lot of engineers apply for retail jobs when I was a kid because the local plant was shut down, and they would have had to leave the state to get jobs in their field.
Luck I feel is the external environment acting in a way that remains favorable to your plans and ideas. It can happen at every tier of life, and the only way to counter it is to have enough individual resources acquired to respond to the change.
My point was that it takes no better than average luck for people that choose to work hard in high paying fields and make good life/financial choices to become millionaires. It may not be easy to stay on that course, given human nature. But barring very bad luck (major health issues, etc.), these things are entirely within your control.
Many people ascribe the consequences from bad or risky choices to bad luck, but the reality is that those are entirely within your control. You are making the decision to experience negative consequences when you make bad decisions.
Just read this article. Very cool how the researchers simulated the role luck plays in society with some neat models. The conclusions they reach are fascinating and counter-intuitive e.g.
>"[I]f the goal is to reward the most talented person (thus increasing their final level of success), it is much more convenient to distribute periodically (even small) equal amounts of capital to all individuals rather than to give a greater capital only to a small percentage of them, selected through their level of success - already reached - at the moment of the distribution."
My two cents from being an entrepreneur: everyone needs luck to succeed but those who are fortunate to have wealth and a support network get far more opportunities for luck to come by. Or, put another way, those with a fortunate background have more chances to fail and find luck eventually than others. Life is not fair but so it is.
I am looking at a great idea that I have been working on, but I am afraid to release it because I know it will be cloned in a matter of months since I can not afford worldwide patent protection.
Without much more data I'd say:
1. I once thought the same of an idea I had. When I finally launched it failed. So no one cared to clone it!
2. I have another idea I now think has merit. I've proven some traction with users. Enough that filing a provisional patent makes sense for about $2k. Might want to try this path too.
This is not my first time down the primrose path. I already have a few patents in my basket. I been tempted to try filing it myself masochist that I am.
I think most people believe that you can choose, on any given night, to study or play video games. And I think most people believe that if you choose to study then sooner or later you will succeed. And I think most people are wrong on both counts.
Creating/building etc improves your chances of success because you are actually making more connections (intentional or otherwise) which increase the chance of luck. That is not wrong, just the luck actually happening is well, still luck (does not happen to all).
I learned the communication skills to be a good remote employee from mmorpgs. I learned about systems design from playing video games and discussing how mechanics interact to encourage/discourage different behaviors. I hate this trope that playing video games is a negative.
So put yourself into the right place. There's a reason people move to Silicon Valley, for example. Put the video game console down, turn the TV off, get up and go to where the opportunity is.
That is easier said than done. The right place is usually only evident in retrospect. A lot of people move to Silicon Valley, work their freakin' asses off for decades, and still don't succeed.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that it's hopeless and that you should just give up and play video games. But I believe that dumb luck is a bigger factor than effort. Luck is necessary, and can be sufficient for success. Effort and skill are neither. (And, BTW, this is a consequence of deep problems in the system we have set up, and we ought to try to change those. But you can't solve a problem without first acknowledging that the problem exists.)
If you roll once or twice, then say "It's just luck", you're completely right.
But if you keep rolling the dice again and again and again, you're eventually going to get a good roll - especially if you can tweak the roll just a bit. Then you say, "Luck is important, but hard work helps, too."
Right place at the right time is a stacker, like so many (most?) things.
Being in the right place at the right time, is probably worthless without the necessary skill/s (where studying/learning/education can come in) and attributes to take advantage of the opportunity in question.
Maybe you meet an elite investor in an elevator and have an opportunity to pitch them. You lack the technical skill or experience to bring it home. You perhaps never really had a shot at that right place + right time moment (so was it ever an opportunity at all? Is it a sliding scale? debate loop).
Some of what we can be is defined at birth. If your brain wiring is very heavily tilted toward being an artist, you likely will not be the next John Carmack. Adrian Carmack could not do what John could no matter how hard he tried (I know they're not related, I couldn't resist). I know there are exceptions to these rules, they're exceptions however.
Suppose you have an identical twin (not separated form you at birth: same environment, same opportunities) who does much better than you due to some external events. Like being at the right place at the right time without you.
The difference in success between you and that identical twin could be attributed to what we might call "situational luck".
All else (those things that give you initial equal footing, making you better or less off than other members of society) would be "inherited luck" or "background/baseline luck".
I think this article is more about this "situational luck" whereby someone does much better than someone else, even though neither is from a disadvantaged background relative to the other (both have similar "baseline luck").
Beautiful. I had never heard of baseline and situational luck before. I am going to read more on the topic. :-)
I'm wondering what would be the formal definitions of these two. Is birth separating them? From a mathematical standpoint, could there be continuity between these two?
Because i’ve Been fascinated with “free will” and having quite the difficulty to find an example of it, consider adding these to the list when considering “choice” and “free will” in the context of any given action: all your experiences, memories, traumatic experiences up to date; the circumstances around you at this moment; the language your mind uses to converse with itself; your habits and preferences; your thoughts at the moment; your physical condition, including blood sugar, sleep, sexual drive etc.; your current desires; the values he culture you live in projects into you; your current multilayered emotional state.
Does anyone believe that they are in full control of all of these? Any of these? Any control?
Now, where’s this independent entity taking actions on its own? I’m still seeking this mythical beast.
I agree that free will, in the sense you've defined here, doesn't exist. But it may exist in the sense that there are levels of determinism to our actions. I like how Steven Pinker explains it in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYbpfKgDKR0
I think the point is that we realize that most success (and many failures) are due in large part to things beyond your control. This realization is important and has social implications - it gives us a reason to be more charitable and kind (spread some luck around) when we are successful.
From 12-step programs, “Accept the things you cannot change. Change the things you can”. To my mind this means, accept the external circumstances you find yourself in - especially other people (since most can’t really exert sufficient force to change other people, at least not in a positive way), and work on changing your own reactions to the world. (This is a view that aligns with Stoic philosophy btw)
I guess for me the biggest questions are:
1. What is “success”? As a Stoic, success for me should be “contentment”, which is far more likely to be achievable than perhaps other definitions of success.
2. Does free will actually exist? If it doesn’t, and our brains are deterministic, then even our reactions are not in our control.
Reading Epictetus' "Enchiridion" at the moment. I enjoy Marcus Aurelius. Can't say I've read a lot of the texts. I'm not a voracious reader (any more). However, I kick off every day with a page from Ryan Haliday's "The Daily Stoic" (while his interpretations are sometimes lacking, the original quote that he expands on usually needs no exposition).
It's just one of these discussions. We create abstractions to describe reality and happenings around us. And then something happens and it's not clear whether it should be described with abstraction A or B. And people tend to have super strong opinions on the matter.
Did you read the paragraph at the bottom of the page?
"three different universities...did not observe the same results as in the original study....The effect...may have been due...to unconscious cues...or may simply have been due to chance. They are very careful in their language to not discredit the original study but they advise that future researchers be more cautious...
Then the conclusion is "The original study still stands"!?! and deserves "slight skepticism"?
Sorry, I'm going with "outright disbelief" until shown credible evidence otherwise.
> But I also believe that anyone else with my circumstances would have nearly identical results.
Then there was no need for you to make any effort. After all, success just dropped on your head.
You say you were "lucky" to be "conditioned to work hard"? I find such statements astonishing. Anyone can work hard, or not. It's a choice. Nobody is "victimized" by laziness. Jeez. How far will people go with excuses?
By the way, people who find themselves in a terrible situation, like war came and the food supply is gone, seem to discover in themselves a fine capability for hard work.
> Wouldn't I then be lucky that we were both in this forum at this time?
As I stated earlier, every detail of one's life is luck, but one chooses to position oneself in situations where one is likely to get lucky.
As for our interactions, I'm not saying anything unique that you cannot find in plenty of other places if you choose to look. If you are out looking, it's highly unlikely you won't run across my views.
In my life, I see people choosing to fail all the time, and they always claim to be victims. I also know many who take responsibility for things that happen to them, the good and the bad. It's empowering for them, as when bad things happen they pick themselves up, figure out what they did wrong, and try to choose better next time.
Do you have a plan for success? Are you executing that plan? If you don't have a plan, or don't execute your plan, how do you expect to succeed?
I attest to this. I have had a reasonable success in life (built and sold a few companies, have a financial cushion, a home, a small plane, etc.).
I have done everything well and with diligence but when I look at the flow of my life, the financial success came primarily from luck. Being at the right place at the right time. Having a good idea at the right time. Knowing the right people at the right time. Having the right product pivot in the right market conditions.
Many of these things worked out because of circumstances beyond my ability to predict and control. I have had a similar amount of failures and my ability to predict what will be successful is limited to nil.
Yes, I worked hard and put my all into everything, but so do many others I know. I was also fortunate (lucky!) to have support systems and friends which allowed me to take risks that turned out to be rewarding. I also try to spread the rewards and recognize those people who have allowed me to find this lucky success.
I also have the luck to be in a country that has reasonable government and infrastructure (perhaps notwithstanding the last year or two), lucky to have chosen economically stable parents who gave me a top education without debt at the end, lucky to have chosen (ha) white privilege which I didn’t fully understand or appreciate until the last decade and try hard to expand to everyone now.
Yes, I made some circumstances to benefit from the luck. But so have others who have not experienced the luck. I am grateful for my luck and work to enable others to have a good life without the same luck. There but for the grace (of god or gaia or luck) go I.
However, it does help when one can recognize a rare opportunity, and can quickly act on it (take that meeting, show up at that event, say the right thing).
You can only get lucky if you position yourself to be able to get lucky. In addition, you need that carpe diem attitude to exploit any lucky breaks.
A business opportunity is not gonna magically appear if you are not constantly looking for one and you won’t be able to exploit it if you haven’t learned relevant skills and built a network.
That logic is inherently flawed because luck plays a part in each of those aspects, too. To have learned the "relevant skills" means you need to have been fortunate enough to have been provided an education. To build a network that matters you need to have access to the right people. Looking for new business opportunities is only possible if you have the resources to do.
Eventually, it all goes back to who you were born as and who you were born to. Your odds of "success" are much higher if you're born as a white male in the US than if you're born as an female in rural India. No amount of effort can change those odds.
That's not to say that effort doesn't play a part, it absolutely does. But a significant amount of success is supported by good fortune layered on more good fortune.
Lucky I just happened to be on HN to read this comment, otherwise I wouldn't have known I needed other skills to take advantage of opportunities that arise.
You can't position yourself to be born a white male, which I believe affords the greatest advantages, and opens the most opportunities of any personal attribute you can have.
No it's not mandatory at all, just incredibly advantageous. Much more so than physical attractiveness, although that helps a great deal in life as well.
But it is a race and gender issue. I'm not trying to divide people, just stating facts.
Attaining wealth is much easier if you're born into a specific race, thus your chances of being born wealthy are directly correlated with your chances of being white.
Attaining wealth is much easier if you're male. Among the many reasons are increased career opportunities in general, less chance of a stalled career because of child rearing, greater status in negotiations, etc.
All I'm saying is it is incredibly lucky to be born a white male in a society which so highly values them, and try as hard you might, you can't position yourself to get that advantage if you weren't born with it.
Having a black doctor for a parent probably provides more benefit than having a white dockworker for a parent. That's the point of the comment above. Similarly for being the daughter of rich couple or the son of a poor couple.
>Having a black doctor for a parent probably provides more benefit than having a white dockworker for a parent.
Sure, but having a white doctor for a parent is very likely more beneficial than both of those examples. This should not be a very controversial point.
While I believe you're right, wealth is the biggest factor, I would say race is probably the next biggest, and gender the next biggest after that. At least here in the USA.
That is a great example of confirmation bias. The person who positions themselves for luck deserves credit. And in my experience usually get it. The person who positions themselves for luck and is unlucky, is usually considered less capable.
I think one has to be lucky to have talent, and the education and upbringing required to learn how to exploit that talent, in addition to having opportunities to take advantage of it. Not even getting into socio-economic challenges due to race and class.
Right on the money. I wouldn't be in the position I am today without a dose of luck/chance, I was in the right place at the right time and knew the right people - but at the same time none of this matters if I was unable to execute and take advantage of the opportunities I was presented.
The luckiest thing that could possibly have happened to you was which geographic area and social status you were born to. How did you manage to position yourself for that?
How did you choose who your parents were going to be?
What part of your carpe diem attitude helped your mom not do drugs and destroy your gestating brain before you were born?
How did you bootstrap your country so that you weren't a victim of war or starvation at a young age?
What part of your attitude ensured you were born into a modern society at the right time to be educated, instead of being a pre-agrarian human ancestor?
What part of your free will in life ensured you'd be the sort of tech person who'd post on HN rather than perhaps an ascetic who'd be living a life of poverty on the streets of Bangladesh to combat consumerist attitudes? Would that be a wrong choice to make?
That said, correlation and causation. The movers and shakers of society are likely to believe they had more control in their life. Not necessarily the other way around. But it can be helpful to envision yourself as being in control of more of your life than you really are.
One of the most important takeaways from this article, is not what the title suggests, but the consequence of it being true for society. It is buried in the middle of the article and if true, is must-reading for everyone who determines public policy or funds startups:
"[I]f the goal is to reward the most talented person (thus increasing their final level of success), it is much more convenient to distribute periodically (even small) equal amounts of capital to all individuals rather than to give a greater capital only to a small percentage of them, selected through their level of success - already reached - at the moment of the distribution."
I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life.
There are a lot of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.
Anecdotally, I've found the opposite. The most successful people ascribe their success to their own hard work first and foremost, discounting all the benefits that luck has brought them, most especially the accident of their birth (rich country, rich parents, race, gender, date, etc.). On the other end of the spectrum, those who are less successful tend to blame all their failures on bad luck and discount their own contribution.
Looking back on my life, there are significant successes that were pure luck, and also those that had nothing to do with luck. I'm talking strictly about events here, and not traits. If you want to talk about the luck of having traits, precursors to those traits, and precursors to those traits, then I think that's a totally different conversation.
So I'll focus on events. Most of my success is due to being a programmer. That's not luck (again, disregarding traits!) I was always fascinated with computers and math. I worked my ass off to afford my first computer at age 12. I worked my ass off to learn programming, and I hustled my ass off to break into the industry with no degree.
Within the context of my career, the vast majority of my success comes from a six-month period full of extremely lucky chance events that just fell into my lap. It's like I was blessed for those six months, and every little thing went exactly my way with perfect timing. Working hard, networking, making good decisions - that's all just a baseline. Just the price of entry. Outside of that magical chapter, I was not working less hard, networking less, having a worse attitude, making stupider choices, or anything of the kind. This is why I have a gripe with people who always scrutinize your part in your circumstances. Yes, maybe its a good strategy to focus on what you can control, but in the bigger analysis, if you're trying to be more analytical about it, it seems like BS to me.
I was consistent. I always worked hard and all that jazz. But sometimes, chance events all went my way and I profited massively from it. Most of the time, either nothing happened, or everything that 'should' have gone right, went wrong. So I personally find the luck angle to be the interesting one - not in the motivational, how-to-live sense. Just in the big picture observation sense.
> Working hard, networking, making good decisions - that's all just a baseline. Just the price of entry.
This is the truth, and very hard to convey in a balanced manner. I typically have discussions with people who only want to focus on luck as being part of my (or their) success, and I also have the same discussion with folks who want to only focus on the hard work aspect.
I've found the same. Most of my financial success in terms of "getting ahead" you can look back to a short period of time where everything went right for you and you got lucky. What many folks completely discount is how your consistent work ethic put you into those positions to take advantage of, and of course no one can see the 9 other times you were in similar situations and it all went to shit. It's about getting back up the next morning and taking that tiny step forward again.
I find these discussions pretty upsetting most of the time as I can look back growing up (background sounds much like yours) and think of the kids I grew up around. You could have predicted with near 100% success rate which of those kids turned out to be financially successful and which would not. I imagine it's much harder in more wealthy environments where poor work ethic isn't nearly as damaging, but in a more austere environment it was completely obvious. Those that partied and never worked hard in their early teens pretty much universally have shit lives now. Those that applied themselves have various levels of what most would consider financial success. I truly think luck is a far secondary factor for this type of success.
The difference is luck truly was the only major indicator of who in that "successful" group went from "decent salary in a nice job" to "building generational wealth" - that seems very much more random than a baseline of "middle class" success.
It usually goes the other way around: people who say that luck isn't important are precisely those that have been very lucky. They have no self-recognition of it. Rather, because they've achieved success with little effort, they have learned and believe that anyone making as little effort as they know they did should also be as successful, so by definition if you aren't successful, you must be lazy as hell.
"I'm a self-made man! I turned that $100 million I inherited from my Dad into a billion by picking the right investment firm!"
True, only to a point.
I knew someone who became homeless because the were unlucky enough to develop schizophrenia. They couldn't hold a job, or hold their life together without a lot of help. The assistance they got from the state was not enough to save them from dire poverty. One bad thing led to another.
So did they not work hard enough?
Another person I knew was kicked out of their parents house when they came out as trans. They were thrown out of their house as a teenager with no money and no relatives to turn to (all the relatives were deeply religious and believed that 'tough love' would make her change her wicked ways). She found work, and eventually got a place to live. But with poor education, and being a social outcast, she could only just make ends meet. It left her vulnerable, and subsequent boyfriends, "friends" and roommates would take advantage of that.
Now you can say these are edge cases. I agree. And for most people, the "hard work" advice pays off. But realize how smug it sounds, to proclaim that all you need is hard work, when some people do everything they can and still get stuck.
Perhaps true, though working-smart and being affable/networked seems more important than grinding. Still, IME, that variable amount of luck is tiny relative to ‘starting luck’, or straight blind luck.
I think it is fair to say that luck ‘compounds’ like interest. Being in a good position generally confers more frequent and higher-value opportunities to get into a better one. Getting lucky early is very important, and the earliest luck you can get is the circumstance of your birth.
Or luck is required, but not sufficient for success. You also have to put in the hard work and be smart.
Put another way, you can't win if you never get to play the game.
The world no doubt has a bunch of self starting geniuses who are trapped in poverty in some third world country and will never amount to anything. It's an enormous waste of an incredibly rare resource.
If you sit on the couch all day doing nothing, you wont get lucky. Sure, we can identify "luck" as a path to success, but honestly that seems more like survivor bias....
There are a nearly infinite number of events that had to take place for everything to exist in its current state. We can call it "luck" or "randomness" which then leads to specific actions leading to success. However, in reality we are designed to recognize patterns.
If we recognize a pattern and make an attempt to improve our situation, it's not "luck" or "randomness" its a probability of success. Combine that over a life time and persistence will lead to success, not just one random event. It's a series of events that lead to success, each one moving you one way or the other. It's typically your "choice" which path you take.
I think these articles rub me the wrong way, because it leads a lot of people to think - "If it's all luck, why bother doing anything?" When in reality it's only you that can get anywhere.
On the contrary, the largest factors of luck, such as being born a white male in a first-world country to wealthy parents, can all be achieved while you are playing Xbox and won't disappear even if you do spend your days on the couch.
"Combine that over a life time and persistence will lead to success, not just one random event."
Will lead to success? This statement of results simply isn't true. What leads to success in the USA, more so than many other countries, is being born lucky, not hard work. That's your best bet. Many many many people will work very hard for their entire lives - harder than you - and never earn more than a subsistence living, because they had the wrong kind of birth luck.
It's not ALL luck. It's just that luck can push you over the edge towards success. If you and an equally qualified person interview for the same position, the person that gets the position may just be the person who happened to go to the same college as the interviewer or that has the same hobby as the interviewer (so they really hit it off and have a great conversation). In that case, one person was lucky and the other was unlucky. They were both equally qualified, but one person just had something extra to talk about with the interviewer and made a good connection.
> If we recognize a pattern and make an attempt to improve our situation, it's not "luck" or "randomness" its a probability of success. Combine that over a life time and persistence will lead to success, not just one random event. It's a series of events that lead to success, each one moving you one way or the other. It's typically your "choice" which path you take.
What's success? Often all it takes to improve your situation is a change of perception. Some of the happiest people I've ever met were living in what Americans would consider to be absolute poverty. And some of the most miserable people I've met were the most 'successful'. Sometimes persistence at failure isn't the answer, but rather learning to appreciate what you have in front of you. My dad spent 40 years checking groceries. Most people here wouldn't consider that being a 'success', but he raised two kids and retired and now he's living in Florida and working on his 66 Chevy Malibu convertible, and he's as happy as I've seen him.
On the other hand, you have Trump, who is a billionaire and the president of the US and from all outside appearances seems to be living in a hell of his own creation.
You're already lucky if you have a couch to sit on. Plenty of people have no house, let alone couch to sit on.
Who you are is substantially a matter of luck, too. Somebody who has two driven parents that spend enormous amounts of time and effort raising them is far more likely to be driven and competitive than a person whose parents lay around smoking weed all day.
What if one parent was never to be found and the other was always at work to ensure you had a roof over your head and as such you were frequently a feral kid?
Your genetic makeup is a product of the genetic histories of two people that (perhaps, but not necessarily) fell in love and had a baby. If they were genetically predisposed to large amounts of self discipline, then perhaps you will be too, perhaps not. I'd say this can count as lucky... or unlucky(?) beyond that, all you've got is your own toil, sweat, tears and guile.
"Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's"
Realistically though, is it luck? If you identify that you are exactly where you are today by happenstance, then sure. You are exactly where you are today because of 1,000 decisions you made, or not made; opportunities you've exploited, people you've met.
But just because one turn of "fate" if you want to call it that meant that one of those pieces may not have lined up and you'd been somewhere else doesn't make you a different person entirely... you could've exploited some other opportunity and ended up somewhere else, that doesn't mean you wouldn't have been equally or even more successful at it. Where one door closes, another opens... if the first door had opened, you probably wouldn't have opened the second door, but you might have. Who knows?
I think your success is a matter of hard work, discipline, paying attention, being what you need to be in the moment to exploit the opportunities in front of you and having the tenacity to turn them into something useful.
Would you call any of that luck? The specifics may be, sure, but the overall pattern of success is not.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is modern self-help culture seems to focus entirely on hard work, habits etc. I routinely balk at stuff promoting 7, 10 or 100 habits of successful people, CEO, leaders or otherwise, as if following them blindly will get you any where.
While hard work helps, it takes some luck to succeed.
Honestly, most of those pieces are really just cargo culting more than anything else. They don't know exactly why a CEO or leader did well, so they look at their mannerisms and everyday habits and assume those were all things that made them more successful rather than ones they were good enough to overcome/that were completely irrelevant.
Well that and the real lessons (aka, luck has a role) isn't quite as soundbite friendly when written in article format.
I agree with this article, but a healthy way to look at for me is multipliers.
Example, success will get you there, but luck is the multiplier.
Example lets say you work super hard and become a millionaire, you run a 2 million dollar company.
I think it's realistic, however your friend with the 20 million dollar company and 200 million dollar company probably didn't work that much harder than you, they just chose better fields and where at the right place at the right time.
Another example non-business wise is genetics. Example: you can work your ass off and be a really good basketball player, you'll have fun, you'll get admiration, but to be an NBA superstar you need a ton of luck involved ie lack of injuries, right coaches, right genetics.
That doesn't mean quit improving as a basketball player or quit that business, it just means try your best and admit luck is a factor.
If you mean "The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized", that's misleading because the actual result was the output of a computer simulation. So we took the misleading bit out, per https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It was also linkbaity, so that guideline applies too.
These kind of articles and discussions almost invariably lead to defeatists and cynical attitudes. It's akin to saying "Unless you're born with good genes, you'll never be an Olympic athlete, so don't bother training and exercising".
You may not ever be wealthy by trying and working hard because of the role luck plays. But there's value in working hard at it that everyone should know, just like there's value in physical training that everyone should know. It takes training and (very importantly) discipline to stick with it.
It's interesting... there's an anecdote floating around out there somewhere about a famous wrestling coach (quite likely Dan Gable[1]) talking to a group of young wrestlers and telling them something approximately like:
"Most of you have the genetics to be an Olympic wrestler. But most of you don't have the work ethic".
Of course that's just an amusing anecdote and there's no reason to think that Dan Gable is an expert on genetics. But it's something to think about.
That's possible. That's one reason I don't take this quote as gospel or anything. Like I said, it's just food for thought.
As far as that goes, we don't even know for sure that we have free will and that we ever actually make any decisions at all. Maybe the whole universe it totally deterministic. I mean, it's hard to see an explanation of how it isn't so. That said I prefer (well, I think I prefer) to believe that we do have free will.
Ignoring these external factors isn't going to make them go away and studying them could lead to ideas about removing bias and having more meritocratic systems.
I think it is more about increasing your "luck surface area". If you are well prepared in your craft you will be better suited to exploit a potential opportunity favorably when the moment comes.
It isn't luck, it's money. Successful entrepreneurs aren't lucky or hard-working, they're just people who have enough cash to operate at a loss while they pursue an idea.
Here's my feeling on luck: You have some control over your own luck, ie. you can make your own luck.
The key is to maximize your own opportunities for luck. For example, when I heard about the very first startup school, I didn't really have the money to go to Boston. But I found a really cheap flight at a terrible time, found a floor to sleep on in Boston, and went.
And in doing that, I met Steve and Alexis and ended up working at Reddit, which made a huge difference in my life. At that point the luck that I can't control kicked in (them wanting to hire me).
But I only met them because I made it a point to find them and meet them and say hello, and it would have never happened if I hadn't figured out a way to get there in the first place and made sure to meet them.
Things like this happen all the time. I look for opportunities were I can "increase my potential for lucky things". Sometimes that means going out of my comfort zone, or asking for something that may be a bit unexpected or there is a good chance someone will say no.
And then the problem is that we are biased to believe that the winners did almost everything right, and the losers did almost everything wrong. Often is chance.
Having said that, those who persevere, by definition are more likely to succeed. They have more changes.
Maybe I have a stronger intrinsic work motivation than most people, but I seem to get luckier when I slow down, assess the situation, and start making simple but sometimes extremely emotionally difficult changes.
Well, I think your scenario applies to another idea: most often we avoid doing that thing that really is the most important, because we emotionally fear it somehow. It can be just calling a client, or changing a career, or even translates for asking a partner out.
For this, you are right, it is vital to stop from time to time, assess the situation, identify the most important thing, and regardless of how difficult it is, do it.
"In general, those with greater talent had a higher probability of increasing their success by exploiting the possibilities offered by luck. Also, the most successful agents were mostly at least average in talent. So talent mattered."
I don't understand this artificial distinction between talent and luck. Isn't one lucky to possess the talent in the first place? What one does to develop that talent into something meaningful is of course a different matter.
It seems that King Solomon already figured this out:
“Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.”
Ecclesiastes 9:11 ESV
Define luck. The Universe by definition isn't deterministic starting from three particles in classical mechanics and one particle in the quantum case.
Define success. Is it doing what you like being surrounded by people you love? Or has it to be a mansion and a yacht?
Without proper definitions the entire discussion is useless.
For example, I state that I have already succeed not because of luck, but because of my free will. And all further improvements in my life will be just better grades of success.
Argument 'if a raptor didn't kill that butterfly far far ago you would now be slave to the vicious Uganda Empire' doesn't fit, as it can by applied to every statement.
Argument that I don't have a yacht doesn't fit, as "yachts are for loosers" and success isn't tied to material posessions.
I believe being at the right place at the right time with the right people matters a lot. And the 'right' part of this equation is more luck than talent, although preparation can definitely help.
This study seems like a subtle ad for UBI. If everyone gets more resources, the most talented will be the most successful (instead of the moderately talented but incredibly lucky).
We're on a small rock flying through an infinite universe. Our lives exist in a small blink of time. Computers run billions of operations per second using software with countless defects at every level of the stack.
We're lucky anything works at all. In that context, we succeeded just by being born and living as long as we have, and we'd be pretty narrow-minded to assume that the material success we enjoy is significantly more than a series of happy accidents.
Every detail that happens in one's life can be attributed to luck. However, one's choices and effort are what enable one to recognize luck when it appears, and take advantage of it.
After all, what are the odds of success for a person who smokes dope and watches TV all day, compared with someone who gets an education and is out there swinging every day?
Try to get resources -> (luck roll) -> starve to death
You see this with people who always have some scheme in the pipeline and may have even had some modest success (and notoriety) with one of the schemes, but ends up dying alone and penniless anyway. They do the work, but never get the break. The world is just unfair sometimes.
Being fortunate to have a die to roll with is a form of luck. Over 10% of the world lives on less than $1.90 a day, and there's no way out - it's not a matter of determination.