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This is also a good time to introduce the concept of survivorship bias. There's a fair chance that it was mostly luck, not ability, that it ultimately succeeded

by Hypx 9y ago

This is also a good time to introduce the concept of survivorship bias. There's a fair chance that it was mostly luck, not ability, that it ultimately succeeded.

Matt3o12_ 9y ago
I don’t know there are a lot of people who have crazy ideas and succeed once despite all odds. Elon Musk did that twice at a very big scale with Tesla and SpaceX. Both companies were supposed to fail and yet the succeeded. And while it is not my generation I believe zip2 and PayPal also had pretty novel concepts which were supposed to fail back then too. He has just done it too many times to be just luck. Sure there was also a lot of luck, but it takes more then luck to do that with at least two successful companies.
- Hypx 9y ago
  There are far more people who tried crazy ideas and failed, and are promptly forgotten. The whole point of survivorship bias is that you have to be cognizant of the data points that failed and therefore aren't recorded, not just the ones that survived and are recorded. According to this: https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/us-entrepreneurship-reaches-record-highs.html https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/us-entrepreneurship-reach... there are 27 million entrepreneurs in the the US. That's a large enough number that even if the chances of each individual entrepreneur having a big hit is just a few percentage points, then there are bound to be many entrepreneur who have multiple successive big hits. Especially considering how many people who are even tangentially related to a successful startup describe themselves a founder or co-founder, resulting in the padding of the success rate. My point being is that we can't rule out the possibility of it all being luck or mostly being luck. Sure, it legitimately could be skill, but there is no way to know for sure, at least currently.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    > "all being luck or mostly being luck" Seriously? What, he flipped a coin a million times which determined what he's going to do next? How are you defining "luck"?
    - danmaz74 9y ago
      Not the OP, but the point of survivor bias is that there were 10 million people flipping coins for the first "moonshot" idea, and let's say 1000 succeeded; then those tossed the coin for the second moonshot and only 1 succeeded. Was the one who succeeded so much better than the other 1000, or mostly luckier?
      - speedplane 9y ago
        But my point is that he didn't flip thousands of coins. He made thousands of calculated decisions. His thousands of decisions resulted in success. Others, with their own thousands of decisions did not. I don't see the "luck" here.
        danmaz74 9y ago
        He took thousands of calculated risks. Lots of those calculated risks didn't pay off, you can be sure. But enough of them did. There are no Übermenschen.
        speedplane 9y ago
        I'm not saying he's the greatest person of all time, or even the smartest, but he's demonstrably one of the best at getting very large high risk projects off the ground and building tons of support for them. That's not luck.
        aninhumer 9y ago
        The point is, if enough of people are making decisions, success is not sufficient to distinguish a "calculated decision" from a lucky one.
        speedplane 9y ago
        I get the point, but it's ridiculous. It's like monkeys on a typewriter coming up with Shakespeare. Sure, it's theoretically possible, but the odds are incomprehensibly small based on luck alone. If a monkey did write that prose, it's probably a pretty special monkey. Likewise, Elon is a pretty special monkey too.
rocqua 9y ago
I used to think that about Musk, but his successes seem to be piling up. Specifically: Paypal, Tesla, and Space-X all seem to be rather successful.
- Hypx 9y ago
  Wouldn't be so sure about Tesla since it has yet to turn in a meaningful profit. SpaceX is a maybe since we don't know its internal finances. We're also ignoring SolarCity, which by any metric was a failure.
- nolok 9y ago
  SolarCity failed (and he had to buy it back himself with Tesla), Paypal was a success but it wasn't his, his part was x.com which was kind of a failure on its goal and had to sell (just because it sold for a lot of money doesn't mean it succeeded, in the terms of "success" we're discussing in this thread). Tesla has yet to make any money and fails to meet its deadline, and it's yet to see how it will far now that the car giants are turning to EV (especially with many countries setting deadline in 2016 and 2017 about the end of non EV cars, which jolted all the big ones into joining). Space-X is for me his one real success so far, it leaned on a lot of public funding to do it so it's really not the kind of things usual for HN, but they said they would re-use when everyone else said "can't be done" or "not worth it", and they're getting there.
matt4077 9y ago
Impress me once, you lucky. Impress me twice, I'll have to talk about survivorship bias. Impress me four times, and I'll start misquoting Napoleon: "If he's been lucky that often, he's the General I want for this"

by Hypx 9y ago

This is also a good time to introduce the concept of survivorship bias. There's a fair chance that it was mostly luck, not ability, that it ultimately succeeded.

Matt3o12_ 9y ago

I don’t know there are a lot of people who have crazy ideas and succeed once despite all odds. Elon Musk did that twice at a very big scale with Tesla and SpaceX. Both companies were supposed to fail and yet the succeeded. And while it is not my generation I believe zip2 and PayPal also had pretty novel concepts which were supposed to fail back then too. He has just done it too many times to be just luck. Sure there was also a lot of luck, but it takes more then luck to do that with at least two successful companies.

Hypx 9y ago
There are far more people who tried crazy ideas and failed, and are promptly forgotten. The whole point of survivorship bias is that you have to be cognizant of the data points that failed and therefore aren't recorded, not just the ones that survived and are recorded. According to this: https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/us-entrepreneurship-reaches-record-highs.html https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/us-entrepreneurship-reach... there are 27 million entrepreneurs in the the US. That's a large enough number that even if the chances of each individual entrepreneur having a big hit is just a few percentage points, then there are bound to be many entrepreneur who have multiple successive big hits. Especially considering how many people who are even tangentially related to a successful startup describe themselves a founder or co-founder, resulting in the padding of the success rate. My point being is that we can't rule out the possibility of it all being luck or mostly being luck. Sure, it legitimately could be skill, but there is no way to know for sure, at least currently.
- speedplane 9y ago
  > "all being luck or mostly being luck" Seriously? What, he flipped a coin a million times which determined what he's going to do next? How are you defining "luck"?
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    Not the OP, but the point of survivor bias is that there were 10 million people flipping coins for the first "moonshot" idea, and let's say 1000 succeeded; then those tossed the coin for the second moonshot and only 1 succeeded. Was the one who succeeded so much better than the other 1000, or mostly luckier?
    - speedplane 9y ago
      But my point is that he didn't flip thousands of coins. He made thousands of calculated decisions. His thousands of decisions resulted in success. Others, with their own thousands of decisions did not. I don't see the "luck" here.
      - danmaz74 9y ago
        He took thousands of calculated risks. Lots of those calculated risks didn't pay off, you can be sure. But enough of them did. There are no Übermenschen.
        speedplane 9y ago
        I'm not saying he's the greatest person of all time, or even the smartest, but he's demonstrably one of the best at getting very large high risk projects off the ground and building tons of support for them. That's not luck.
      - aninhumer 9y ago
        The point is, if enough of people are making decisions, success is not sufficient to distinguish a "calculated decision" from a lucky one.
        speedplane 9y ago
        I get the point, but it's ridiculous. It's like monkeys on a typewriter coming up with Shakespeare. Sure, it's theoretically possible, but the odds are incomprehensibly small based on luck alone. If a monkey did write that prose, it's probably a pretty special monkey. Likewise, Elon is a pretty special monkey too.

rocqua 9y ago

I used to think that about Musk, but his successes seem to be piling up. Specifically: Paypal, Tesla, and Space-X all seem to be rather successful.

Hypx 9y ago
Wouldn't be so sure about Tesla since it has yet to turn in a meaningful profit. SpaceX is a maybe since we don't know its internal finances. We're also ignoring SolarCity, which by any metric was a failure.
nolok 9y ago
SolarCity failed (and he had to buy it back himself with Tesla), Paypal was a success but it wasn't his, his part was x.com which was kind of a failure on its goal and had to sell (just because it sold for a lot of money doesn't mean it succeeded, in the terms of "success" we're discussing in this thread). Tesla has yet to make any money and fails to meet its deadline, and it's yet to see how it will far now that the car giants are turning to EV (especially with many countries setting deadline in 2016 and 2017 about the end of non EV cars, which jolted all the big ones into joining). Space-X is for me his one real success so far, it leaned on a lot of public funding to do it so it's really not the kind of things usual for HN, but they said they would re-use when everyone else said "can't be done" or "not worth it", and they're getting there.

matt4077 9y ago

Impress me once, you lucky. Impress me twice, I'll have to talk about survivorship bias. Impress me four times, and I'll start misquoting Napoleon: "If he's been lucky that often, he's the General I want for this"