[patio11]

The best explanation I've ever heard of it is the concept of "luck surface area", which I was first introduced to on the TechZing podcast. It's the product of "work you do" and "people you touch with it."

There are hotel maids that work harder than any of us ever will. Nobody knows their name. This does not result in them getting appreciable amounts of career-enhancing luck.

There are people who achieve a brief bit of Internet stardom, on the basis of a shallow connection, such as e.g. being the person a photo a meme was based on. You will probably not retire on being a meme.

However, if you've written OSS that is key to 100 companies or if you have a blog read that 5k developers would cite as one of their top five or if you got two dozen people their jobs or yadda yadda, you'll be freaking amazed how many lucky opportunities come your way.