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There are several properties that make the lottery and startups different, if we really want to take seriously the attempt to analyse the degree to which the an

by tw1010 9y ago

There are several properties that make the lottery and startups different, if we really want to take seriously the attempt to analyse the degree to which the analogy is a faithful representation. For one, the lottery is winner-take-all, while it's totally possible to succeed in a startup as long as you don't artificially clip the failure threshold at some insanely high bar (especially if you choose to not pursue a winner-take-all market, like building the next social network). Despite the many startups that fail, you're still more likely to make a living betting on that than a lottery. There is definitely a case to be made that taking a normal job vs doing a startup wins in terms of opportunity cost. But to compare it to a lottery is obviously an exaggeration.

mdorazio 9y ago
Sorry to nitpick, but lotteries are generally not winner-take-all. There are tiered rewards based on "amount of luck" (number of numbers matched), and there is no cap on the number of people who can "win" simultaneously. Large jackpots are often shared by multiple winners.
grblovrflowerrr 9y ago
There is the matter of skills as well. There is no skill in buying lottery tickets[1]. But there are many skills that help you succeed at startups(technical/domain knowledge, persuasion, marketing etc.). You have control over the skills you develop. The quality of your work is a reflection of your skill. And at the very least high quality work in the right context has slightly better than random chance at succeeding. Of course, the right context is so so important, and the multitude of factors that go into that are what probably make people draw the confusion that it's all luck. Just because luck can create some overnight succeeds stories doesn't mean that all successes were purely created by luck. You have to be in a position to benefit from a lucky break in the first place. [1]I'm not counting cases where people exploited weak randomness in ticket numbers to predict wins

by tw1010 9y ago

mdorazio 9y ago

Sorry to nitpick, but lotteries are generally not winner-take-all. There are tiered rewards based on "amount of luck" (number of numbers matched), and there is no cap on the number of people who can "win" simultaneously. Large jackpots are often shared by multiple winners.

grblovrflowerrr 9y ago

There is the matter of skills as well. There is no skill in buying lottery tickets[1]. But there are many skills that help you succeed at startups(technical/domain knowledge, persuasion, marketing etc.). You have control over the skills you develop. The quality of your work is a reflection of your skill. And at the very least high quality work in the right context has slightly better than random chance at succeeding. Of course, the right context is so so important, and the multitude of factors that go into that are what probably make people draw the confusion that it's all luck. Just because luck can create some overnight succeeds stories doesn't mean that all successes were purely created by luck. You have to be in a position to benefit from a lucky break in the first place. [1]I'm not counting cases where people exploited weak randomness in ticket numbers to predict wins