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Luck is a huge part of success. It's mythology that if you work hard enough for long enough that the world will become your oyster. Sweat and ingenuity are ofte

Luck is a huge part of success. It's mythology that if you work hard enough for long enough that the world will become your oyster. Sweat and ingenuity are often necessary but not necessarily sufficient means to financial gain. No one launches from the same starting line nor runs along the same track. And don't forget that all the other smart folks out there are ravenously competing against you for those hotly desired greenbacks. Count your blessings if you are one of the lucky ones.

WalterBright 8y ago
It's not about working hard, and never was. It's about working smart. And people make their own luck. You can't get lucky if you're not in the game swinging. I've known plenty of people who just sat at their desks, doing as little as possible, waiting for the boss to direct them, reading hackernews(!), watching the clock till they could go home. They were never going to get lucky. Then there are the ones who are always up to something. They're doing a side project, they started a band, they go to meetups, they write articles, they talk about their investment strategies, they're planning out their next venture, and you know they're going to get lucky.
- buoyantair 8y ago
  Trust me no matter how smart you play, if you are born in this world at a very vulnerable position, like say a marginal group like lgbtq communities in third world or in a war torn area or with disabilities, no matter how smart and hard you work, you are always a few clicks behind those who have the "luck" and everything else on their side. The world is super unfair place and sometimes even if you work really smart and hard, you won't get the results you worked for.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    I'm talking about the US and being an able-bodied adult.
    - perfmode 8y ago
      The US is one of the least egalitarian of developed nations.
      - vinceguidry 8y ago
        Despite a distinct lack of egalatarianism, the US remains the place where someone born at the bottom can still climb the social ladder. Billionaire-hood may escape them, but they're not doomed.
        perfmode 8y ago
        remains "the" place? the number one determinant of future success in the US is the zip code in which you're born.
        earhart 8y ago
        Causation isn’t correlation; zip code is easy to measure, but I’d bet it’s not what actually matters.
        mcguire 8y ago
        Zip code is a darn good proxy for race, family wealth, social standing, network prospects....
        WalterBright 8y ago
        You can always move to another zip code.
        perfmode 8y ago
        Do we live in the same america?
- lolc 8y ago
  I was already lucky: My side-projects were chosen based on interest and benefits. I don't need more money.
  - pdimitar 8y ago
    Have you considered getting in touch with people who have interesting ideas about side projects and enable them to live well while pursuing them?
    - lolc 8y ago
      You mean funding them? I sort of have done that, though probably not in ways you would recognize easily. Unfortunately it would be too private to expand on this here.
      - pdimitar 8y ago
        I have always been curious about how this works or how people decide whom to fund -- or whose ideas they find interesting. Do you mind a private message?
        lolc 8y ago
        I regret my reply that sounds a lot like I'm some sort of secret donor. Instead, I work with diverse political projects. They have in common that they don't use money transactions in specific situations where others would. It's interesting to see what happens when money as motivator is removed. Sometimes I'm a technician, sometimes I help organize, sometimes I'm the legal front. And some projects I do fund, but not to a degree that anybody's livelihood depended on me.
        pdimitar 8y ago
        And I am sorry if it sounded like I am fishing for sponsorship. Not at all! I am simply very much interested in the dynamics of the process. I would like to know how do people get together to discuss such things in the first place, for example. Apologies if I projected the wrong message before.
- paganel 8y ago
  There’s nothing wrong with being a salaried person, there’s nothing actually wrong with trying to make a decent buck so that you can have a roof on top of your head and a computer with access to the internet so you can read HN daily. I work so that I can read HN (among other myriad things that I enjoy doing), I don’t read HN so that I can get more money so that I can do... I don’t know what exactly should I be doing other than reading HN and the myriad other things I just mentioned that I liked. “Investing” is hard and very risky work that offers almost no intellectual benefits (and I’m pretty sure the index-tracking bubble will burst and create a bigger mess than what happened back in 2008), I’d much rather spend my time mapping the Byzantine coins found over the Northern Balkans (a nice way to re-create regional trade routes from about 1000 years ago) or being undecided whether the people who put the Indo-European “urheimat” just North of the Black Sea were right or wrong (does Anatolia make for a better choice?). There’s nothing wrong with holding an ok job that pays the bills so you can pursuit your real intellectual interests.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    > There’s nothing wrong with being a salaried person I didn't say there was. I was talking about people who wanted more than that.
- int0x80 8y ago
  I agree with this thoughts very much. The attitude you mention is key, at least in my reduced and anecdotical experience. It is true, however, as others say, that you have to start from a reasonable and relative good baseline and that part is just pure luck.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    Children can certainly blame their situation on their parents. But once an adult, then it becomes their responsibility.
    - int0x80 8y ago
      Absolutely... adults don't/shouldn't play the blame game, just pointing out that in all fairness not everyone starts from the same point, but this is not really related to the main point beeing discussed anyway.
- mcguire 8y ago
  "... doing a side project, they started a band, they go to meetups, they write articles, they talk about their investment strategies, they're planning out their next venture,..." "Working smart"?
daenz 8y ago
>Luck is a huge part of success. The sad reality is, no matter how irrational is, people don't want to be around someone who is considered unlucky. Especially at a startup. I don't agree with this at all, but I'm saying it because I don't want to pretend that that psychological influence doesn't exist.
- williamdclt 8y ago
  I've never seen anybody that had a "lucky" or "unlucky" reputation. Some people are considered to "have been lucky" at some point in time, but nobody considered to have a "luck" or "non-luck" trait. In other words, I've never observed what you describe, never even heard of it
  - phkahler 8y ago
    Luck is magically transformed into talent when seen by outsiders.
  - daenz 8y ago
    A quick google search "are some people lucky" will show that people very much believe in luck as a trait. Like I said, it's irrational, but people believe in it. It's a placeholder for someone who succeeds or fails abnormally, without a visible cause. Consider this: You're working at a startup that is struggling, and you're interviewing a candidate whose last 5 startups they worked at folded within 6 months of them being hired. As rational as people try to be, there would be a back-of-the-mind superstition that hiring that person would be bad luck.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      If you’re at a startup that’s struggling where hiring decisions are made on superstition, you might be the unlucky one...
      - daenz 8y ago
        There are many people involved in influencing the process to hire someone, and as I'm sure you know, many people vote "no" for the most seemingly inconsequential reasons. As superstitious as "bad luck" is, like I stated in my earlier post, it's a placeholder/heuristic for abnormal amounts of failure without a clear cause.
triviatise 8y ago
life is statistics. The more at bats you get, the more likely one of them will be a home run. Tenacity, hard work, risk tolerance, and good decision making give you more at bats. There is a second path too which is slow and steady wins the race. If you live well below your means and invest your money you will also end up with enough money that you don't need to work. My wife's private school just got a $3M donation from their janitor of 50 years when he passed away. If you save 30-40% of your pre tax income, then you will be able to retire at a reasonably young age, with a very high probability.

WalterBright 8y ago

It's not about working hard, and never was. It's about working smart. And people make their own luck. You can't get lucky if you're not in the game swinging. I've known plenty of people who just sat at their desks, doing as little as possible, waiting for the boss to direct them, reading hackernews(!), watching the clock till they could go home. They were never going to get lucky. Then there are the ones who are always up to something. They're doing a side project, they started a band, they go to meetups, they write articles, they talk about their investment strategies, they're planning out their next venture, and you know they're going to get lucky.

buoyantair 8y ago
Trust me no matter how smart you play, if you are born in this world at a very vulnerable position, like say a marginal group like lgbtq communities in third world or in a war torn area or with disabilities, no matter how smart and hard you work, you are always a few clicks behind those who have the "luck" and everything else on their side. The world is super unfair place and sometimes even if you work really smart and hard, you won't get the results you worked for.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  I'm talking about the US and being an able-bodied adult.
  - perfmode 8y ago
    The US is one of the least egalitarian of developed nations.
    - vinceguidry 8y ago
      Despite a distinct lack of egalatarianism, the US remains the place where someone born at the bottom can still climb the social ladder. Billionaire-hood may escape them, but they're not doomed.
      - perfmode 8y ago
        remains "the" place? the number one determinant of future success in the US is the zip code in which you're born.
        earhart 8y ago
        Causation isn’t correlation; zip code is easy to measure, but I’d bet it’s not what actually matters.
        mcguire 8y ago
        Zip code is a darn good proxy for race, family wealth, social standing, network prospects....
        WalterBright 8y ago
        You can always move to another zip code.
        perfmode 8y ago
        Do we live in the same america?
lolc 8y ago
I was already lucky: My side-projects were chosen based on interest and benefits. I don't need more money.
- pdimitar 8y ago
  Have you considered getting in touch with people who have interesting ideas about side projects and enable them to live well while pursuing them?
  - lolc 8y ago
    You mean funding them? I sort of have done that, though probably not in ways you would recognize easily. Unfortunately it would be too private to expand on this here.
    - pdimitar 8y ago
      I have always been curious about how this works or how people decide whom to fund -- or whose ideas they find interesting. Do you mind a private message?
      - lolc 8y ago
        I regret my reply that sounds a lot like I'm some sort of secret donor. Instead, I work with diverse political projects. They have in common that they don't use money transactions in specific situations where others would. It's interesting to see what happens when money as motivator is removed. Sometimes I'm a technician, sometimes I help organize, sometimes I'm the legal front. And some projects I do fund, but not to a degree that anybody's livelihood depended on me.
        pdimitar 8y ago
        And I am sorry if it sounded like I am fishing for sponsorship. Not at all! I am simply very much interested in the dynamics of the process. I would like to know how do people get together to discuss such things in the first place, for example. Apologies if I projected the wrong message before.
paganel 8y ago
There’s nothing wrong with being a salaried person, there’s nothing actually wrong with trying to make a decent buck so that you can have a roof on top of your head and a computer with access to the internet so you can read HN daily. I work so that I can read HN (among other myriad things that I enjoy doing), I don’t read HN so that I can get more money so that I can do... I don’t know what exactly should I be doing other than reading HN and the myriad other things I just mentioned that I liked. “Investing” is hard and very risky work that offers almost no intellectual benefits (and I’m pretty sure the index-tracking bubble will burst and create a bigger mess than what happened back in 2008), I’d much rather spend my time mapping the Byzantine coins found over the Northern Balkans (a nice way to re-create regional trade routes from about 1000 years ago) or being undecided whether the people who put the Indo-European “urheimat” just North of the Black Sea were right or wrong (does Anatolia make for a better choice?). There’s nothing wrong with holding an ok job that pays the bills so you can pursuit your real intellectual interests.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  > There’s nothing wrong with being a salaried person I didn't say there was. I was talking about people who wanted more than that.
int0x80 8y ago
I agree with this thoughts very much. The attitude you mention is key, at least in my reduced and anecdotical experience. It is true, however, as others say, that you have to start from a reasonable and relative good baseline and that part is just pure luck.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  Children can certainly blame their situation on their parents. But once an adult, then it becomes their responsibility.
  - int0x80 8y ago
    Absolutely... adults don't/shouldn't play the blame game, just pointing out that in all fairness not everyone starts from the same point, but this is not really related to the main point beeing discussed anyway.
mcguire 8y ago
"... doing a side project, they started a band, they go to meetups, they write articles, they talk about their investment strategies, they're planning out their next venture,..." "Working smart"?

daenz 8y ago

>Luck is a huge part of success. The sad reality is, no matter how irrational is, people don't want to be around someone who is considered unlucky. Especially at a startup. I don't agree with this at all, but I'm saying it because I don't want to pretend that that psychological influence doesn't exist.

williamdclt 8y ago
I've never seen anybody that had a "lucky" or "unlucky" reputation. Some people are considered to "have been lucky" at some point in time, but nobody considered to have a "luck" or "non-luck" trait. In other words, I've never observed what you describe, never even heard of it
- phkahler 8y ago
  Luck is magically transformed into talent when seen by outsiders.
- daenz 8y ago
  A quick google search "are some people lucky" will show that people very much believe in luck as a trait. Like I said, it's irrational, but people believe in it. It's a placeholder for someone who succeeds or fails abnormally, without a visible cause. Consider this: You're working at a startup that is struggling, and you're interviewing a candidate whose last 5 startups they worked at folded within 6 months of them being hired. As rational as people try to be, there would be a back-of-the-mind superstition that hiring that person would be bad luck.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    If you’re at a startup that’s struggling where hiring decisions are made on superstition, you might be the unlucky one...
    - daenz 8y ago
      There are many people involved in influencing the process to hire someone, and as I'm sure you know, many people vote "no" for the most seemingly inconsequential reasons. As superstitious as "bad luck" is, like I stated in my earlier post, it's a placeholder/heuristic for abnormal amounts of failure without a clear cause.

triviatise 8y ago

life is statistics. The more at bats you get, the more likely one of them will be a home run. Tenacity, hard work, risk tolerance, and good decision making give you more at bats. There is a second path too which is slow and steady wins the race. If you live well below your means and invest your money you will also end up with enough money that you don't need to work. My wife's private school just got a $3M donation from their janitor of 50 years when he passed away. If you save 30-40% of your pre tax income, then you will be able to retire at a reasonably young age, with a very high probability.