[Draiken]

That's somewhat irrelevant IMO.

There are hundreds of thousands of hard workers (probably millions) that are smarter than him that will never become billionaires. The difference is: he got lucky.

This is the nature of survivorship bias.

[bell-cot]

> The difference is: he got lucky

So...back in 1993, when Jensen Huang was founding Nvidia, how many of those million-ish "smarter" people had any real interest in founding a graphics card company? Or any sort of company, period?

Yes, luck favored him a number of times, to make it to $8e10 net worth. If he was only worth a measly $8e5, would you have some other reason(s) to sneer at him?

[Draiken]

I don't understand why everyone assumes I'm talking down on him. I'm merely pointing out how irrelevant that quote is.

> how many of those million-ish "smarter" people had any real interest in founding a graphics card company? Or any sort of company, period?

That's not the right question. The right question is: how many of those even had the opportunity to do this? I'd doubt it's more than a single digit.

He made it. Congrats to him. But we don't know why he made it. No, it wasn't because he "suffered". It wasn't because he worked hard. We quite simply can't know.

If you can't attribute his success to what he is saying, it's not relevant. Now that he made it, he can proclaim it was any of his millions of choices, but by definition it cannot be a few generic choices, because many more made the same choices and never made it.

Luck is a stub for all of the infinite choices and events that conspired for him to be where he is today. It's nice to pretend it's hard work that leads to success (or in this case "pain and suffering"), but it's most definitely not true.

[MrYellowP]

I guess at least some people realize how insulting you are.

"Luck" is often a reason given by losers. It's the argument that shifts blame away from their own poor, often stupid decisions. It's used by losers when it comes to starting and running businesses, just like it's used by losers who failed to buy-in on cryptos or stocks when they were low.

"Oh, your business actually took off? You got lucky!"

"Oh so btc hit 69k? You got lucky."

They talk as if they had any clue whatsoever (because to make the assessment you need to understand the matter at hand), but if that was the case, they'd be amongst the actually objectively successfull people.

So ... yeah, right. I didn't make the right decisions at the right time to make sure [project] works out, after doing lots of research. No, I just got lucky. I didn't put hard work into [my project], I just got lucky.

Fuck. You.

It's not luck. No. It's simply not being a clueless loser. It's "putting hard work into reaching your goal". It's "not giving up". It's "standing your ground against the losers who want you to fail".

If these people you're mentioning, were so smart, they'd be rich.

Now take a good fucking guess why they're not.

[Draiken]

What a load of crap. Being a hard worker is not causation for being rich. That's such a naive take.

How many people working 3 jobs you know are billionaires? Even millionaires? Are those not hard working people?

Yeah, citing crypto, which is literally gambling, tells me the kind of argument you have.

Not sure why the personal attacks are necessary.

[uxcolumbo]

I don’t understand why you are being downvoted.

Can folks who downvote please explain why?

Because survivorship is a real thing and becoming a billionaire isn’t just down to hard work or resilience.

[Draiken]

It's simply easier to down vote than it is to have a conversation. Especially with strong arguments.

The fact is: people want to believe hard work leads to success. It's a nice thought.

Many people center their entire lives around this concept. If someone challenges it, it can make them very angry.

> isn’t just down to hard work or resilience.

I'd argue it's never down to either of those. These are way too common to be relevant in the equation. Imagine if I told you all hard working resilient people were billionaires. I'd be factually incorrect and be rightfully called crazy.

But when folks don't say it out loud and instead only imply, it's suddenly accurate. Makes no sense.

[m3kw9]

So being unlucky makes one more qualified?

[Draiken]

No?

The point is: he's no more qualified than anyone else. Whatever he's saying is simply not reproducible and most certainly not what made him a billionaire. Otherwise we could all just replicate whatever any billionaire does and inevitably become one. That's not how it works though, is it?

It's easy to say it was hard work that got you there after you're the 1e-20% that made it.

[tester756]

>The point is: he's no more qualified than anyone else.

On the other hand to what you're saying

He had to make fuckton of decisions over his whole time as a CEO and that's where it brought him, so he definitely had at least some idea, vision, direction supported by some traits.

[Draiken]

I don't know mate. Maybe you're right, but I still doubt it.

Once you're a CEO with hundreds of thousands of very smart people under you, making the wrong decision is much, much harder. There's some skill to it, but so few people get into that position that simply not making completely dumb decisions can already lead to success. A good company has self-sufficient people that don't need to be micro-managed.

I've said it many times before: give someone billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of talented individuals and I'm pretty sure they'll manage just fine. But we can't know for sure, so... maybe you're right in that sense.

Going back to the original point though, had he pointed out his decisions and vision, that'd be completely different compared to attributing it to "suffering and pain". That's plain silly.

[tester756]

Luck is an intersection of preparation and opportunity

[cpach]

Was luck involved? To some degree I guess. But come on, to say it’s pure luck, is that credible?

[Draiken]

I'm not saying it's pure luck. I'm saying the only relevant part is luck.

If you get billions of smart hard working people, you still only get a few hundred billionaires. The only differentiator is luck.

You're one of the lucky that could migrate, went to the right schools, met the right set of people, were born in the right year and so on.

It's purely the logical conclusion. Some people get inspired through quotes like that, and it's probably good to lie to yourself that your hard work will inevitably pay off. But we should all know that it's ultimately a lie.

[tester756]

>If you get billions of smart hard working people, you still only get a few hundred billionaires. The only differentiator is luck.

There are no billion equal people.

There are other differentiators than just opportunity: environment, background, culture, childhood, experience, vision and maybe traits.

>It's purely the logical conclusion. Some people get inspired through quotes like that, and it's probably good to lie to yourself that your hard work will inevitably pay off. But we should all know that it's ultimately a lie.

That's not a lie, it just doesn't guarantee success. But it increases probability (when you talk in general, not some specific person).

[Draiken]

>There are other differentiators than just opportunity: environment, background, culture, childhood, experience, vision and maybe traits.

That's what I mean when I say luck. It's a combination of millions of variables that eventually lead to the successful outcome. The vast majority of those we have no control over.

So I stand by it. Ultimately the difference is luck. You can't pinpoint one of those millions of events and say: this was it. It's always a combination of them all.

>That's not a lie, it just doesn't guarantee success. But it increases probability (when you talk in general, not some specific person).

If inspirational quotes were phrased like that, I agree, that's not a lie. But at least in my bubble I only see folks with fanatical belief that if you work hard you are guaranteed success. I even got personal attacks for my comment from one of those fanatics.

Or even more commonly, like in this case, already successful people attributing their success to "hard work", which is extremely misleading.

The Tyranny of Merit[1] talks about this in a lot more depth.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Merit-Whats-Become-Common/dp/...