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> Very impressive right ? Except the journalistic angle is basically "kids make money from nothing" when the reality is that they have access to two MacBook Pro

by gxs 17y ago

> Very impressive right ? Except the journalistic angle is basically "kids make money from nothing" when the reality is that they have access to two MacBook Pro's, at least one iPhone , two iPad's, a broadband connection, a credit card to pay for the Apple Developer license plus web hosting. I typically despise this point of view. Sure, I can readily admit that there is an element of luck in success - but I've never done it to the extent of belittling other people's accomplishments. On a sidenote: this is why I didn't enjoy Malcolm Gladwell's outliers- you can't diminish people's success to merely luck - even if you pre-append your babble with, sure they were smart, but they were really just lucky. I mean where do you draw the line? To use his own example - Lebron James isn't talented: he was just lucky to be born with athleticism and ability? Were Larry and Sergey just lucky to be born with an ability to reason and work hard? Give me a break.

sh1mmer 17y ago
Exactly. There are a lot of kids in their social class who don't work as hard and don't get as much back as a consequence. The measure of a person is not what they started with, it's what they did with it.
starkfist 17y ago
"Were Larry and Sergey just lucky to be born with an ability to reason and work hard?" Almost anyone is born with the ability to reason and work hard. Larry and Sergey were obviously born with this ability. In addition they were both born into families where both parents were professionals in the mathematical sciences. Larry's parents were CS professors. Sergey's dad is a math professor and his mom works for NASA. In addition, Larry's older brother Carl sold his company to Yahoo for $400M+. Thus not only did math and programming run in the family, so did software entrepreneurship. Not belittling their achievements, but parts of the backstory make it seem like Google was predestined. Where do you draw the line between luck and work, indeed...
- idoh 17y ago
  Do you have a source for Carl's role in eGroups? It is hard to tell whether he was just an employee at the company or something more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGroups http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGroups
  - starkfist 17y ago
    I'm not really sure but his old ZVUE page said he was a founder. Most of the articles I've seen imply that he was the 2nd person to join the company.
- gxs 17y ago
  I acknowledged that sometimes you can attribute success to luck. Studies have shown, however, that luck makes a difference between success and UBER success - not between success and failure. And while yes, like Warren Buffet we can acknowledge that we are lucky to begin with to be born in the US, he was making that argument in terms of helping people in the third world- not in terms of excusing failure within the US. I'm glad you brought up the example that you did - because quite frankly - Larry and Sergey situation was not unique. I had many friends whose parents were wealty, and even more whose parents were professors. I can assure you that does not equate to automatic success. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and presume to know what these two figures were thinking, but it takes a driven person to put themselves in position to take advantage of opportunity when it arises. That is, it takes a driven individual to make it to Stanford grad school to begin with. This is the same argument that is used to explain why people from shitty situations/backgrounds aren't absolved when they commit a heinous crime - because what then does it say of the people from the same background who avoid those mistakes? And yes, I am such a person from the hood. And no, I'm not a staunch republican that believes no one is at a disadvantage - I realize that some people really are playing catch up from the minute they exit the womb.
ebiester 17y ago
That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be fully cognizant of the fact that most of us are privileged. Most of us grew up at least middle class in our respective countries, and had access to computers as a kid. And we should also figure out ways to bring as many of those same advantages (food in the stomach as a kid, good learning environments) as we can to more people, so that we can benefit from the potential economic output we're missing now.
lutorm 17y ago
The point is that you don't know about the people who were just as smart and worked just as hard, so you have no way of judging. Ability and hard work are necessary but not sufficient conditions. To disprove that thesis, you'd need a complete sample of people with ability and hard work and, before you know the outcome, be able to select who would succeed.

by gxs 17y ago

sh1mmer 17y ago

Exactly. There are a lot of kids in their social class who don't work as hard and don't get as much back as a consequence. The measure of a person is not what they started with, it's what they did with it.

starkfist 17y ago

"Were Larry and Sergey just lucky to be born with an ability to reason and work hard?" Almost anyone is born with the ability to reason and work hard. Larry and Sergey were obviously born with this ability. In addition they were both born into families where both parents were professionals in the mathematical sciences. Larry's parents were CS professors. Sergey's dad is a math professor and his mom works for NASA. In addition, Larry's older brother Carl sold his company to Yahoo for $400M+. Thus not only did math and programming run in the family, so did software entrepreneurship. Not belittling their achievements, but parts of the backstory make it seem like Google was predestined. Where do you draw the line between luck and work, indeed...

idoh 17y ago
Do you have a source for Carl's role in eGroups? It is hard to tell whether he was just an employee at the company or something more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGroups http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGroups
- starkfist 17y ago
  I'm not really sure but his old ZVUE page said he was a founder. Most of the articles I've seen imply that he was the 2nd person to join the company.
gxs 17y ago
I acknowledged that sometimes you can attribute success to luck. Studies have shown, however, that luck makes a difference between success and UBER success - not between success and failure. And while yes, like Warren Buffet we can acknowledge that we are lucky to begin with to be born in the US, he was making that argument in terms of helping people in the third world- not in terms of excusing failure within the US. I'm glad you brought up the example that you did - because quite frankly - Larry and Sergey situation was not unique. I had many friends whose parents were wealty, and even more whose parents were professors. I can assure you that does not equate to automatic success. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and presume to know what these two figures were thinking, but it takes a driven person to put themselves in position to take advantage of opportunity when it arises. That is, it takes a driven individual to make it to Stanford grad school to begin with. This is the same argument that is used to explain why people from shitty situations/backgrounds aren't absolved when they commit a heinous crime - because what then does it say of the people from the same background who avoid those mistakes? And yes, I am such a person from the hood. And no, I'm not a staunch republican that believes no one is at a disadvantage - I realize that some people really are playing catch up from the minute they exit the womb.

ebiester 17y ago

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be fully cognizant of the fact that most of us are privileged. Most of us grew up at least middle class in our respective countries, and had access to computers as a kid. And we should also figure out ways to bring as many of those same advantages (food in the stomach as a kid, good learning environments) as we can to more people, so that we can benefit from the potential economic output we're missing now.

lutorm 17y ago

The point is that you don't know about the people who were just as smart and worked just as hard, so you have no way of judging. Ability and hard work are necessary but not sufficient conditions. To disprove that thesis, you'd need a complete sample of people with ability and hard work and, before you know the outcome, be able to select who would succeed.