[schwurb]

So does buying more lottery tickets. Surely, the odds at being lucky are better than in playing lottery. However, they are much less predictable than people assume. We tend to systematically overestimate our own influence and underestimate external factors.

[kgantchev]

Then why do we value talented people at all? How much of their work is luck and how much is talent? If not much is talent, then I should be able to get lucky with people who aren't talented.

[AstralStorm]

There are degrees of success. Doing good work is only the most basic. Even really good work you're talented in.

Getting anything else requires opportunity. Even discovering where your talents lie takes resources.

And there's also genetic luck, not necessarily biological but also wealth and environment. Without that many talents are unknown or undeveloped. This kind of luck cannot be made.

Nobody can actually find people with undeveloped talents. You'd have to force them to try a wide variety of occupations, preferably early so that they can develop it.

The people we value are not just any talented, they're developed talents that have been noticed, and beyond that lucky geniuses.