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The OP 'studies what makes companies successful'. The issue is you are only studying the lucky sperm ones (if we take that sentence at face value; maybe 'they'
by gist 6y ago
The OP 'studies what makes companies successful'. The issue is you are only studying the lucky sperm ones (if we take that sentence at face value; maybe 'they' do) as opposed to the complete set of companies. And also you'd never be sure anyway since people are connected to people and you'd never know how a connection resulted in success (vs. some other factor). It's an art and luck it's not (as a point was made) 'science'.
Now that said some thing can work to insure success or make it more likely.
Take the author here. His firm has 'feynman' in their name. On HN who from what I can tell worships Feynman (I didn't even know who he was prior to HN) that will work. In another place it would have the same impact of using 'warby' in 'warby' parker. Meaning good but not stop the presses. (It's clever but some might also say it's annoying to use a cheap trick like that not the same either (it's all nuance) as calling your bagel place 'einstein bagels' (there is one or was one).
I have been 'studying' (you could say) both successful and failed companies for probably longer than most HN readers have been around. Best I will say it's hard work, luck, and of course timing as the major factors. Separately they don't teach any of that when I was in of those really good business schools that people would die to go to.
- rjyoungling 6y agoI can assure you I didn't have Feynman in the name of my company to score some extra upvotes on HN. Not that that would even help btw. If you browse through my submission history, you'll see that most of my posts get <10 upvotes. It's interesting that you accuse my company of not taking survivorship bias into account yet here you are falling victim to retrofitting.
- gist 6y ago> I can assure you I didn't have Feynman in the name of my company to score some extra upvotes on HN Ok so why do you have 'Feynman' in your company name then? And I didn't say it was for getting upvotes either. I implied (or meant to imply) that it was as a way to get attention by inventing some kind of fake association. The fact that it didn't do anything before does not mean it has no value (as a test). > yet here you are falling victim to retrofitting Explain what you mean by 'retrofitting' in this context I don't understand that meaning here. You are familiar with the use of celebrities who associate with products. The idea is that someone is more likely to pay attention and consider if they think a celebrity is involved or associated than a random person. Does not mean it will always work or that you can succeed without it. It means in many situations it will get you more than w/o it as always 'it all depends'. Paul Newman's salad dressing came out in 1982. By Paul having his name on it he got instant recognition in the press and in supermarkets. Doesn't mean people would buy it if it wasn't good but more likely to take a chance as a result of that name a shopper would stop and say 'hmm what's this'.