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Even the Steve Jobs example of a super-talented individual relies on luck. In the universe where he didn't meet Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs was probably consiste
by jacques_chester 10y ago
Even the Steve Jobs example of a super-talented individual relies on luck.
In the universe where he didn't meet Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs was probably consistently in the top 3 Mercedes salesmen in California.
Not to mention: merely being born in a wealthy country during a period of relative peace is so much luckier than the lot of humans throughout history that it is almost worthy of bad science fiction.
- fleitz 10y agoWhich would be true if wealthy countries in times of peace were randomly distributed rather than being as a result of culture
- jacques_chester 10y agoI am talking at an individual level. Despite what some folk might wish to believe, Steve Jobs probably came to exist because his parents had sex.
- drinkjuice 10y agoCulture which the people born into have no affect on prior to being born into them, so what would that change about the point? It's not like the US has this super peaceful culture either, so I'm not even sure about what culture has to do with it at all. But even if that made perfect sense it would change nothing about the original point.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- coliveira 10y agoWealthy countries are not randomly distributed, but where you are born is randomly distributed, with a bias to the poor side.
- jpttsn 10y agoYou're born in close proximity to your mother. The veil of ignorance is a mental model; in reality, there is no lottery stork that places children randomly.
- valuearb 10y agoIf Wozniak never met Jobs, Woz would just be a super valuable engineer working for some large company. Jobs always would have found someone to build things for him, and would have been a super successful entrepreneur. His product development instincts/ability was off the charts, both in how he motivated people, how he managed the process, and how he created end goals.
- jacques_chester 10y agoThe pool of Wozniakian engineers is limited. And it used to be very, very limited. If it wasn't Jobs, it'd be someone else, and we'd be just as sure that the other ubermensch was Destined To Succeed No Matter What.
- valuearb 10y agoWozniak had nothing to do with the success of the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, or the NeXT OS that runs on them. Steve Jobs was successful with Woz, he was successful without Woz, he was successful when handed a near bankrupt Apple and forced to turn it around. He was even ultimately successful with NeXT, despite a few bone headed decisions.
- jacques_chester 10y agoThese are not events with independent probability. Without Wozniak, there was no Apple.
- valuearb 10y agoJobs had a clear entrepreneurial bent and desire to build technological products. He would have found another engineer and likely his first company is not quite as successful, but very likely the rest of his life isn't much different.
- valuearb 10y agoBTW: The Mac motherboard was designed by Burrell Smith, who was pulled out of Apples service department, later when on to found Radius. Woz was an amazing engineer but Jobs had a knack for finding amazing engineers and getting them to build his ideas.
- ikeboy 10y agoIQ, country, time born, etc are all forms of luck, of course, but it's worth distinguishing that luck from luck of experience that happens later in life.
- jacques_chester 10y agoThe difficulty is that we draw the distinction using available examples of successful individuals and companies. This sample is fantastically biased due to survivorship. Without a complete record of all the failures of equivalent intelligence, drive, experience etc, it's not possible to fairly attribute to luck or to personal characteristics.