[jasonkester]

How about we grant that luck is a factor and that you need to be in a situation where you're able to at least try? That still leaves roughly everybody here in the pool of people who can build a software business in their nights and weekends.

The important takeaway is that so many people, yourself included it would seem, use confirmation bias as a shield they can hide behind. A way of proving to themselves that success is impossible, and that therefore the best course of action is not to try at all.

That's a shame, since it's so self-reinforcing. If you never even try, it doesn't matter how good the odds are. You still won't get there.

[smokestack412]

I've been successful way beyond my control and I understand that. This guy doesn't and blames people who weren't for making him feel bad.

[Vinnl]

FYI: You're replying to the person who wrote the article.

That said, I do think he's raging against people pointing out Survivorship bias [1] rather than Confirmation bias. But perhaps the confusion between the two is the reason he's missing the point: the "critics" are not so much pointing out that a successful person's advice is worthless and that their success is sheer luck and that therefore you shouldn't try - it's that whatever worked for them might not work for you, and whatever did not work for them might work for you. In other words, don't expect a successful person's advice to be a magic formula, and don't be discouraged if their advice seems unattainable for you to follow.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

[smokestack412]

I read the premise of the article to be that people who aren't successful a) aren't taking enough risks, and b) aren't working hard enough. This is wrong in at least two ways and denigrates people who a) can't, and b) are. I'm restating my original point but please correct me if I'm wrong. I find that kind of reasoning to be utterly disgusting, ignorant and self-serving. That was my issue with the article.

[cpkpad]

I think you're actually missing the point.

"Competent to execute" is far more important than "working hard enough." Elon Musk splits his life between Tesla, Solarcity (now part of Tesla, but essentially independent), The Boring Company, SpaceX, and Neuralink. He also dabbles in a slew of other projects. That means he works at most 8 hours per week on each of those. Is that working hard? It's hardly working.

Unless you've done a circuit where you've been in many roles in companies, and have experience in tech, marketing, management, sales, finance, legal, etc. running your first startup is almost guaranteed to bomb, but you're also almost guaranteed to pick up some of that experience. The basic model -- many risks, a few successes -- is great for both personal growth and being a successful entrepreneur. Indeed, I'll say Elon is partially successful because he can leverage experience across those companies.

I do agree many people aren't in a position to do this. Restrictive employment agreements, financial obligations, and family obligations certainly can eat you up alive.

[pdimitar]

Elon Musk is a huge outlier.

And it is you that is missing the point. Many of us cannot try enough times to succeed. As stated in another comment, if I try 2-3 times and fail I am back to not only square one, but maybe on the street.

[cpkpad]

A lot of the more successful entrepreneurs I know operate a lot like Elon Musk. The basic model seems to be to:

* Start a project in spare time

* Validate technology (prototype something)

* Validate market demand (talk to customers)

* Validate business model (estimate costs/revenues/etc.)

* Otherwise mitigate risk as appropriate for the business

Most of these are pretty deep dives; it's not a one-evening project. In most cases, people (like Elon) become minor domain experts. On the other hand, these are also not job-quitting deep dives; one isn't on the street if one fails.

Perhaps for every few dozen such deep dives, something which looks really plausible comes up. From that point, it's largely a matter of good execution.

I think the key difference between my friends and Elon is that Elon tries to do Really Big Things which change the world. My friends might start a business which e.g. applies machine vision to a new vertical, or adds some kind of automation to some industrial process, or similar.

At this point, all have lives, families, etc. and aren't working 70+ hour weeks. Failure rates for their businesses aren't all too high either. Most business they start seem to at least pay the bills for the boss and the employees (with a few much bigger successes, and a few failures).

I'm not saying that's most folks, but that is most folks in my community. But they've universally managed people before, they can code well, they can do math well, they've built out a reasonable network of contacts, etc.

[jasonkester]

Allow me to correct your misunderstanding.

My premise is that there are way too many people who haven't built successful software companies because they a) never even tried.

And, that the reason many of them never tried is because of rationalizations that the "successful" people must have had some special quality that they themselves could never possess, and that therefore it would be pointless to try at all.

Which is a shame.

[themarkn]

Hmm. I disagree with this overall assessment that that's what's going on. I think people some people (especially hn people) are rightly suspicious of advice that is related to that one specific time success happens. Though of course some individuals apply this in a kneejerk way which must be infuriating if you're trying to make a more subtle point.

But I think in general it's a trend against the idea that successful people or projects are successful because of a particular sequence of steps that could, if replicated, make an observer successful also. Whereas, as you point out, it's more about this meta thing of how we do our best to recognize good conditions for success, and then keep showing up. If the chances of success (especially really big success) are small- trying more times increases your odds.

I think people, broadly speaking, understand this idea, and all the yelling about confirmation bias has roots in real instances of people bragging/advising/publishing books/whatever based on anecdotes about things that happened during their specific successful project, with less recognition of how much coincidence matters.

And yes, you can't benefit from coincidence if you don't show up. If you aren't trying in the first place. If that is your actual premise, it's not very obvious to me from your post. Honestly the tone of your post felt more like complaining/whining that people won't listen to your advice when you want to give it and how frustrated that makes you, than a sincere attempt to talk about the pros and cons of repeatedly taking risks on new projects when you could be doing other things.

[jasonkester]

It's surprising to hear that you (and others) think I'm talking about the reaction to my advice. I don't think I've actually seen anybody call my writing confirmation bias any of the times it has made it here.

This is something I notice in the reactions to other people's posts. I'll read something, nod along to a bunch of good ideas and overall wisdom, then come read the commentary here dismissing the whole thing.

Oddly, thinking about it now, it's something that never seems to happen to my own advice. Perhaps it's so self-evidently obvious that my success is random chance and bad ideas that worked in spite of themselves, that nobody ever felt the need to point it out.

[smokestack412]

Your premise has something to do with your success preventing you from being able to give advice to people? Something again about your success, and how you've been successful? And how your success facilitated your success?

"Maybe what you're really seeing is Confirmation Bias and, again, everything you have to say is worthless."

"Which is annoying."

"Because it misses the point."