7 ms·

> I am not sure if any of this is particularly useful advice—none of it sounds that hard, and yet in the 15 years since, it hasn’t been close to replicated. Th

by mbesto 6y ago

> I am not sure if any of this is particularly useful advice—none of it sounds that hard, and yet in the 15 years since, it hasn’t been close to replicated. There's a reason for this - PG/Jessica never set out to replicate anything. Same thing went for people like Jobs. This is the problem with trying to emulate highly successful people. We assume there is a pattern and then try to replicate it. The reality is that these people found a path that no one was looking at and exploited. Many people attempt this and fail. The older I get the more I realize that there really isn't a secret to highly successful people. The best advice I've given myself is to stop trying to find other's secret and to just find my own. Success is skill * luck.

mellosouls 6y ago
Success is skill x luck. And hard work. And perseverance.
- teddyh 6y ago
  Well, hard work leads to skill, and perseverance (and optimism) leads to luck.
- jdmichal 6y ago
  Those are just synonyms. Applying skill over and over until the luck finds you. A few people get found quickly. Others having to keep putting in the work and waiting.
- lazyjones 6y ago
  And first mover advantage (works also for being the first to get some essential properties right).
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Very much this. I mean there are replicable success factors like basic SEO or hiring a good accountant but i don't think that counts. The secret to your non-secret is to know when you know yourself ... or perhaps given the rest of the thread, it's easier to trust your instincts when you have a couple of million in the bank.
cblconfederate 6y ago
cargo cult entrepreneurship
Kosirich 6y ago
I couldn't agree more. I had to pull a quote or two from Fooled By Randomness as it seemed appropriate: “Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.” “If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why should our future resemble our current past?”
dheera 6y ago
The thing is, Jobs actually replicated everything. It's just that he repackaged it in a way that is more accessible to people, redesigned it to look more fashionable and clean, and closely guarded the ecosystem. The iPod came after digital Walkmans, the iWatch came after Pebble, the iPhone came after Blackberrys. Apple's position in the market is a fashion company, much like Rolex or Gucci, and not exactly the first company I would think of in terms of technological innovation.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Rolex and Gucci don’t tell time any more accurately than Casio. Apple, on the other hand, allowed my non educated non English speaking great grandma in a rural village in a developing country to be able to reliably video call her descendants thousands of miles away. And no, Android/Skype/Viber/Tango wasn’t an option because we tried them all and they sucked. Also the amortized cost of apple products is far less than non apple products considering they actually get updates for 5+ years. So I fail to see how it’s like a luxury watch or belt that simply serve to show how much the owner can afford.
  - dheera 6y ago
    > non apple products considering they actually get updates for 5+ years This is just not true. Flagship Android phones get 3 years of updates, and beyond that you can install open source OSes like LineageOS, which you just cannot do on Apple. Most people buy phones every 3 years anyway, even Apple users, since the battery life is severely reduced by then. As for desktop computers, non-Apple computers can always have new OSes installed on them and hardware is often user-upgradable. I have rarely seen a soldered-in SSD other than in the Apple world. Last week I just changed out my 2TB drive for a 4TB SSD for a grand total of $400. In the Apple world you'd have to buy a new PC and they charge you +$1600 for that soldered-in 4TB SSD, and that's on top of the cost of a new PC that I didn't have to buy.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      I think you have a very skewed view if you think that the things you mentioned are something the average consumer is going to do.

by mbesto 6y ago

mellosouls 6y ago

Success is skill x luck. And hard work. And perseverance.

teddyh 6y ago
Well, hard work leads to skill, and perseverance (and optimism) leads to luck.
jdmichal 6y ago
Those are just synonyms. Applying skill over and over until the luck finds you. A few people get found quickly. Others having to keep putting in the work and waiting.
lazyjones 6y ago
And first mover advantage (works also for being the first to get some essential properties right).

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

Very much this. I mean there are replicable success factors like basic SEO or hiring a good accountant but i don't think that counts. The secret to your non-secret is to know when you know yourself ... or perhaps given the rest of the thread, it's easier to trust your instincts when you have a couple of million in the bank.

cblconfederate 6y ago

cargo cult entrepreneurship

Kosirich 6y ago

I couldn't agree more. I had to pull a quote or two from Fooled By Randomness as it seemed appropriate: “Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.” “If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why should our future resemble our current past?”

dheera 6y ago

The thing is, Jobs actually replicated everything. It's just that he repackaged it in a way that is more accessible to people, redesigned it to look more fashionable and clean, and closely guarded the ecosystem. The iPod came after digital Walkmans, the iWatch came after Pebble, the iPhone came after Blackberrys. Apple's position in the market is a fashion company, much like Rolex or Gucci, and not exactly the first company I would think of in terms of technological innovation.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
Rolex and Gucci don’t tell time any more accurately than Casio. Apple, on the other hand, allowed my non educated non English speaking great grandma in a rural village in a developing country to be able to reliably video call her descendants thousands of miles away. And no, Android/Skype/Viber/Tango wasn’t an option because we tried them all and they sucked. Also the amortized cost of apple products is far less than non apple products considering they actually get updates for 5+ years. So I fail to see how it’s like a luxury watch or belt that simply serve to show how much the owner can afford.
- dheera 6y ago
  > non apple products considering they actually get updates for 5+ years This is just not true. Flagship Android phones get 3 years of updates, and beyond that you can install open source OSes like LineageOS, which you just cannot do on Apple. Most people buy phones every 3 years anyway, even Apple users, since the battery life is severely reduced by then. As for desktop computers, non-Apple computers can always have new OSes installed on them and hardware is often user-upgradable. I have rarely seen a soldered-in SSD other than in the Apple world. Last week I just changed out my 2TB drive for a 4TB SSD for a grand total of $400. In the Apple world you'd have to buy a new PC and they charge you +$1600 for that soldered-in 4TB SSD, and that's on top of the cost of a new PC that I didn't have to buy.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I think you have a very skewed view if you think that the things you mentioned are something the average consumer is going to do.