I read it as an argument that to reach truly obscene, globally recognizable levels of achievement, you need talent, determination, discipline, and luck. It kin

I read it as an argument that to reach truly obscene, globally recognizable levels of achievement, you need talent, determination, discipline, and luck. It kind of makes sense if you think about it, since achievement typically has a log-normal distribution with a long right-hand tail, which implies that it's based on multiple normally distributed underlying factors. Take away any one of the factors, and you rapidly approach more "normal" levels of achievement.