[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/...