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To me, the worst part of the fantasy is that we then consider the people that actually do make it to the "money shot" as if they were management geniuses, inste

by jgeada 11y ago

To me, the worst part of the fantasy is that we then consider the people that actually do make it to the "money shot" as if they were management geniuses, instead of lottery winners. Mostly the success has more to do with luck, timing and personal connections than the individual technical merits of the management team, but that is never what you read afterwards. And so you end up with all sorts of ridiculous management, methodology or market segmentation advice that bears little to no chance of ever working again. The same lottery ticket may win again, but it is highly improbable.

rcarrigan87 11y ago
In terms of building a fortune 500 company, yes a lot of luck is involved. For mid-sized businesses there are guys who do it over and over again.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  In most cases, the reward for building a mid-sized business is not much greater than working your way up the food chain at a large business. It just becomes a question of whether you value independence or not.
- fulafel 11y ago
  It is still consistent with the luck & connections theory if you allow that you gain a lot of experience and connections from the first successful round.
gist 11y ago
> To me, the worst part of the fantasy is that we then consider the people that actually do make it to the "money shot" as if they were management geniuses, instead of lottery winners. This extends to engineers and computer scientists as well. Take Wozniak. Constantly given countless platitudes when he was most likely as qualified as many engineers at HP who never came in contact with Steve Jobs. [1] But the story is always played as "he was Einstein in the Patent office just waiting to be unleashed". Or Marc Andressen. Was he that special when he came up with, as an undergraduate, the Netscape browser? [1] Einstein special or just "special"?. (And of course there was Jim Clark who was there to help him..). Or the google guys as phd students. The list is endless. This is not to take away from anyone's hard work as opposed to others of equal ability that slacked off of course. Credit is due however the over the top hyperbole of the media and bloggers is quite distasteful at times. [1] And of course nearly 100% of what most people know about these people is what is written about them by others..

by jgeada 11y ago

rcarrigan87 11y ago

In terms of building a fortune 500 company, yes a lot of luck is involved. For mid-sized businesses there are guys who do it over and over again.

vonmoltke 11y ago
In most cases, the reward for building a mid-sized business is not much greater than working your way up the food chain at a large business. It just becomes a question of whether you value independence or not.
fulafel 11y ago
It is still consistent with the luck & connections theory if you allow that you gain a lot of experience and connections from the first successful round.

gist 11y ago

> To me, the worst part of the fantasy is that we then consider the people that actually do make it to the "money shot" as if they were management geniuses, instead of lottery winners. This extends to engineers and computer scientists as well. Take Wozniak. Constantly given countless platitudes when he was most likely as qualified as many engineers at HP who never came in contact with Steve Jobs. [1] But the story is always played as "he was Einstein in the Patent office just waiting to be unleashed". Or Marc Andressen. Was he that special when he came up with, as an undergraduate, the Netscape browser? [1] Einstein special or just "special"?. (And of course there was Jim Clark who was there to help him..). Or the google guys as phd students. The list is endless. This is not to take away from anyone's hard work as opposed to others of equal ability that slacked off of course. Credit is due however the over the top hyperbole of the media and bloggers is quite distasteful at times. [1] And of course nearly 100% of what most people know about these people is what is written about them by others..