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> It was similar with Lionel Messi. He had great natural ability, but when his youth coaches talk about him, what they remember is not his talent but his dedica

> It was similar with Lionel Messi. He had great natural ability, but when his youth coaches talk about him, what they remember is not his talent but his dedication and his desire to win. I can assure you, there are many kids that practice harder than Messi did when he was young. He is not a great player because of hard work, he is a great player because of luck. I know the VC thing about the importance of hard work. They love to promote hard work because that's how they make money. It's just plain silly to attribute Messi's greatness to anything other than luck - both his physical abilities and the environment that taught him how to fine tune his abilities. Hard work is useless without that special precise knowledge of which work you should be doing. Few young soccer players know how to practice in a way to become Messi, even if they have the right body to do it. It's useless without being in the right environment too. > Now, when I'm not working hard, alarm bells go off. I can't be sure I'm getting anywhere when I'm working hard, but I can be sure I'm getting nowhere when I'm not, and it feels awful. That, my friends, is what a VC would love for you to believe. There's nothing sincere when someone in his position writes something like this. Because hey, if you're the 0.1% of the time that it works out, he gets rich. And if you're the 99.9% that wastes their time (like all the kids that never play soccer at the highest levels) he loses nothing. I used to enjoy PG's writings. He's crossed a line where he believes that the only thing good in the world is what is best for VCs.

eloff 5y ago
PG says: > There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. You can do pretty well with just two, but to do the best work you need all three: you need great natural ability and to have practiced a lot and to be trying very hard. I think that's the fundamental secret to success at anything. If you want to compete at the top level you have to have all three. It's not sufficient to just work hard, or just have natural ability. You need to fully apply yourself aligned with your natural talents. Hard work is a necessary but not sufficient requirement.
- bachmeier 5y ago
  Without luck, you will not get to the level of Messi. Without knowledge, you will not get to the level of Messi. Without living in the right environment, you will not get to the level of Messi. The "natural ability" thing is just a spin on the same idea. Work hard to recognize your natural ability. Be realistic about it. In that view, natural ability is not a matter of luck. It is still a story about doing the right things so that you deserve all the credit if you are successful, and more importantly, so that you can blame those that didn't.
  - MetaWhirledPeas 5y ago
    Without hard work, even lucky Messi would be a nobody. The ability to do hard work is a worthy personal goal. Not for the sake of a job per say, but for the sake of one's own well-being. You seem to be seeing this exclusively through the lens of predatory capitalism, which might blind you to any valuable insights here.
  - eloff 5y ago
    > Without luck, you will not get to the level of Messi. I would add that as a fourth requirement to compete at the very top level along with the other three. A degree of luck is also necessary. > Without living in the right environment, you will not get to the level of Messi. A fifth requirement. None of that means hard work is NOT a requirement too - and one of the most important. Without hard work Messi gets nowhere. But if he has the other things going for him, eventually he will get lucky by just being persistent.
    - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      The issue is that you can't know if you meet the other requirements, so it's easy to think "I'll get lucky by just being persistent" and you never go anywhere.
      - koonsolo 5y ago
        That is true. If you want more certainty, get a job. But if you want to shoot for the stars, you might end up in a situation where your hard work doesn't pay out.
- RivieraKid 5y ago
  Fundamental secret? I thought this is obvious. Imagine the following simple model. People have 3 normally distributed attributes: luck, talent and laziness, their sum determines succcess. If you generate 1 million people and sort them by success, the top 1000 will be good at all of the 3 attributes
  - eloff 5y ago
    It is obvious, but a huge number of people don't get it still.
ultrasounder 5y ago
howdy. as someone who has followed his career trajectory for the last 15 yars, I can assure You that "Luck" or serendipity or however You want to normalize his abilities has nothing to do with his abilities. Its Sheer Hard-work and Will to win. Being lucky is scoring 50 goals one season and 10 the second. This guys averages 50+ every season. So You might want to read up on it before You hypothesize. Like Spock famously said, "there is no such thing called miracles".
- karpierz 5y ago
  GP isn't saying that he is lucky each game, he's saying he was lucky to be born with the body he has and he was lucky to get the coaching opportunities that came with that.
  - vl 5y ago
    But it's not exactly true. His body statistically is not the best for football. In fact he had a growth problem he had to take hormonal treatment for. Initial coaching opportunities are thanks to the parents, but then he had to work hard to qualify for Barcelona youth program. Then he had to move to Spain as young teenager to be able to continue training at the required level. Amount of hard work and sacrifice he invested is way beyond that most other footballers do, and incomparable to normal population at all.
    - tomjakubowski 5y ago
      Shorter people have a lower center of gravity which is an advantage for players maneuvering the ball through the midfield. There is certainly a trade off with strength and vision but Messi's body type is hardly unusual in top flight football. Xavi and Iniesta, who played with Messi on Barcelona, were superstars and all three are 5'7".
      - vl 5y ago
        Messi is 169, average height at the World Cup is 182.4, this is quiet a difference. In fact he is in the lowest percentiles. Ronaldo is 187, Neymar is 175.
edanm 5y ago
Putting aside the fact that the article explicitly agrees with you that just hard work isn't enough, here's the part of your comment I don't understand: > I know the VC thing about the importance of hard work. They love to promote hard work because that's how they make money. Why would they promote hard work if hard work didn't matter? And if it does matter, then what exactly is your problem with what pg is saying?
- bachmeier 5y ago
  > the article explicitly agrees with you that just hard work isn't enough It does not in any way agree with me. I am saying luck is important. If that's anywhere in there, I missed it. > Why would they promote hard work if hard work didn't matter? Hard work is not the distinguishing characteristic. Luck is. Why promote hard work? Because someone else is working hard for your benefit.
  - lubesGordi 5y ago
    So just to be clear, you're saying that in order to be successful, you have to be lucky, primarily?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - sidlls 5y ago
      I’d agree with that. Luck is absolutely a requirement and it is definitely more important than any other factor.
      - goatlover 5y ago
        What about intelligence and being able to notice emerging trends? Do you think Jobs and Gates were simply lucky in the early 80s? Or did they see what was going on at Xerox PARC and the coming PC revolution? Their less lucky colleagues stayed in college and went on to have normal careers.
going_ham 5y ago
In fact there is a good video from Verassium [1]. One can't discount luck. There is no such thing as hard work. It's just the feeling of being in flow and whatever one does to make you re-live that flow, it's totally worth it. Instead of working on hard problems, it's best to prioritize on optimum problem and get the best out of your situation. With optimum problem, I mean the problems that allow you to maximize your living, instead of believing on moonshot dream. It's okay to dream, but putting expectations on dream is losing touch with reality. Sure in an ideal world, essays like this would be perfect motivation, but you are living in a world ruled by billionaires and plutocrats. So, as long as you get enough share of the pie, I don't think one should pursue the moonshot dream. Rather invest this time on working on job (whole-hardheartedly) only during office hours, and actually try living a life outside of it. You don't have to be a superstar to live a life because humans have already lived for so long. Stop believing these bullshit VC ideas. The real essence of this essay is understanding the flow and noticing the events that triggers flow. [2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I&t=12s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I&t=12s [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354. Flow
- luffapi 5y ago
  I’ve been feeling great dread lately with the direction our industry is going (has always been going tbh). This conversation gives me some sort of renewed hope though. Hundreds of people admitted hard work burned them out; seeing VCs ask to sacrifice your life for their bottom line. Realizing the role luck plays in success. Maybe covid pushed a significant number of people past their breaking point and now their eyes are wide open. I cannot say, but I’m glad to see so many people are speaking the truth.
  - adamors 5y ago
    Check out Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb, it's a great little book that goes over just how much chance goes into one's success (and how oblivious most humans are to detecting this chance).
- irajdeep 5y ago
  That video from Verassium is spot on.
ceilingcorner 5y ago
Your comment about VCs makes no sense. If a VC wants you to work hard because that’s how a VC gets rich, that means that working hard leads to building a successful company. If it were purely luck, why would the VC care if you worked hard or not?
- luffapi 5y ago
  If VCs knew what made companies great, they wouldn’t fail 9 out of 10 times. More than any profession I can think of, VC is almost pure luck + how much wealth you already have, which attracts deal flow, which increases your odds to get lucky. PG blogs because he thinks it increases his deal flow (or he wants attention). Just because he’s saying it, it doesn’t make it true, even if he believes his own story.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    That still doesn't answer my question. If hard work had no effect, why would VCs encourage it?
    - luffapi 5y ago
      Because they’re ignorant and think it matters.
      - ceilingcorner 5y ago
        So they encourage hard work because it makes them money, but not really, because they are only ignorant in thinking that it does, and it's actually entirely luck? Yeah, this attitude is a mental pretzel more akin to ideology than fact.
        luffapi 5y ago
        They make money through luck. They speak authoritatively out of ignorance. Monkeys rolling dice could do an equally good job, that doesn’t mean you should take advice from a monkey with a gambling problem.
swman 5y ago
Okay, but nobody is going to become anywhere close to Messi without working hard. That's the point. Do you think someone could become Messi by putting in barely any practice or effort? You might get into a team, but you won't be a Messi lol. Be honest with yourself. Obviously luck plays a role, but most people (>90% I'll bet) who are successful in the end get there due to hard work. I could sit on my butt and do nothing all day, and suddenly my doge coin are worth a million bucks. I basically don't know anyone IRL who got mega rich off these things. I know a lot more people IRL who are mega rich because they work hard to this day.
- luffapi 5y ago
  It’s important to recognize physical activity is very different from mental, creative or social activities. If you can convince people of things, you can be wildly successful. They may listen to you because you speak well, they may listen to you because you’re telling them what they want to hear or they may listen to you because you’re rich. None of which require the rigorous practice of a professional athlete. Same goes for creative endeavors. I can be much more creative (and successful) if I’m well rested vs. grinding. Contrary to you, the most successful people I know didn’t work hard at all. They either inherited cash and a network or they invented something that got huge and they sold it.
  - thomastjeffery 5y ago
    > the most successful people I know didn’t work hard at all. They either inherited cash... That's not success.
    - luffapi 5y ago
      I think the vast majority of CEOs and VCs come from the upper class. At least 99% of the execs I know did.
- kentosi 5y ago
  The parent's comment wan't implying that luck was everything, but to point out that luck is also an important factor. > There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. And luck, Paul. Don't forget luck. Hard work is only sustainable when you occasionally get that carrot at the end of the stick, before moving onto the next bit of hard work.
juanre 5y ago
He is talking about doing great work, not about becoming rich or successful. You do need luck for your great work to take you places, but your own agency counts for much of your ability to do great work. Plenty of great work will not reap great rewards; it is done because someone feels that it has to be done.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
You are arguing a completely different point than PG. PG is talking about the ingredients for "doing great things" and "great work". You are talking about getting rich. Sometimes these are aligned, and sometimes they aren't. It seems like you are looking for a predictive model of who succeeds in society and who doesn't, while PG is offering life advice on the value of hard work (something within an individual's control) - a different topic.
dempsey 5y ago
You have to put yourself in a position to get lucky. Doesn’t mean that you will.
koonsolo 5y ago
If you want to be the best, you will have to work very hard. Claiming that anyone who is at the top of their game isn't working hard, is just plain lying. This doesn't mean that only working hard will get you there. But it does mean that not working hard will not get you there.
RivieraKid 5y ago
Well to be the best in a very large group of people, you need to max out all of the main factors: luck, talent, hard work. That's just statistics. I agree with you though. I find it annoying when people play down the role of luck in their success, it's kind of narcissistic. Unconsciously, they like the feeling that they are better than others, and by achieving success, they prove it to themselves. Giving luck too much credit would break this line of reasoning. Also, one very important but overlooked factor of hard work is that it's highly correlated to the expected reward. It's much easier to work hard at a quickly-growing startup that you co-own, compared to working hard at a regular job that you don't find meaningful. The hard-workers in the former example then think they "deserve" the success because they've been working harder than others, when in fact, they were just lucky.
tim333 5y ago
>He's crossed a line where he believes that the only thing good in the world is what is best for VCs. I don't think he thinks that at all. Check out his article on VCs http://www.paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html http://www.paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html

eloff 5y ago

PG says: > There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. You can do pretty well with just two, but to do the best work you need all three: you need great natural ability and to have practiced a lot and to be trying very hard. I think that's the fundamental secret to success at anything. If you want to compete at the top level you have to have all three. It's not sufficient to just work hard, or just have natural ability. You need to fully apply yourself aligned with your natural talents. Hard work is a necessary but not sufficient requirement.

bachmeier 5y ago
Without luck, you will not get to the level of Messi. Without knowledge, you will not get to the level of Messi. Without living in the right environment, you will not get to the level of Messi. The "natural ability" thing is just a spin on the same idea. Work hard to recognize your natural ability. Be realistic about it. In that view, natural ability is not a matter of luck. It is still a story about doing the right things so that you deserve all the credit if you are successful, and more importantly, so that you can blame those that didn't.
- MetaWhirledPeas 5y ago
  Without hard work, even lucky Messi would be a nobody. The ability to do hard work is a worthy personal goal. Not for the sake of a job per say, but for the sake of one's own well-being. You seem to be seeing this exclusively through the lens of predatory capitalism, which might blind you to any valuable insights here.
- eloff 5y ago
  > Without luck, you will not get to the level of Messi. I would add that as a fourth requirement to compete at the very top level along with the other three. A degree of luck is also necessary. > Without living in the right environment, you will not get to the level of Messi. A fifth requirement. None of that means hard work is NOT a requirement too - and one of the most important. Without hard work Messi gets nowhere. But if he has the other things going for him, eventually he will get lucky by just being persistent.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    The issue is that you can't know if you meet the other requirements, so it's easy to think "I'll get lucky by just being persistent" and you never go anywhere.
    - koonsolo 5y ago
      That is true. If you want more certainty, get a job. But if you want to shoot for the stars, you might end up in a situation where your hard work doesn't pay out.
RivieraKid 5y ago
Fundamental secret? I thought this is obvious. Imagine the following simple model. People have 3 normally distributed attributes: luck, talent and laziness, their sum determines succcess. If you generate 1 million people and sort them by success, the top 1000 will be good at all of the 3 attributes
- eloff 5y ago
  It is obvious, but a huge number of people don't get it still.

ultrasounder 5y ago

howdy. as someone who has followed his career trajectory for the last 15 yars, I can assure You that "Luck" or serendipity or however You want to normalize his abilities has nothing to do with his abilities. Its Sheer Hard-work and Will to win. Being lucky is scoring 50 goals one season and 10 the second. This guys averages 50+ every season. So You might want to read up on it before You hypothesize. Like Spock famously said, "there is no such thing called miracles".

karpierz 5y ago
GP isn't saying that he is lucky each game, he's saying he was lucky to be born with the body he has and he was lucky to get the coaching opportunities that came with that.
- vl 5y ago
  But it's not exactly true. His body statistically is not the best for football. In fact he had a growth problem he had to take hormonal treatment for. Initial coaching opportunities are thanks to the parents, but then he had to work hard to qualify for Barcelona youth program. Then he had to move to Spain as young teenager to be able to continue training at the required level. Amount of hard work and sacrifice he invested is way beyond that most other footballers do, and incomparable to normal population at all.
  - tomjakubowski 5y ago
    Shorter people have a lower center of gravity which is an advantage for players maneuvering the ball through the midfield. There is certainly a trade off with strength and vision but Messi's body type is hardly unusual in top flight football. Xavi and Iniesta, who played with Messi on Barcelona, were superstars and all three are 5'7".
    - vl 5y ago
      Messi is 169, average height at the World Cup is 182.4, this is quiet a difference. In fact he is in the lowest percentiles. Ronaldo is 187, Neymar is 175.

edanm 5y ago

Putting aside the fact that the article explicitly agrees with you that just hard work isn't enough, here's the part of your comment I don't understand: > I know the VC thing about the importance of hard work. They love to promote hard work because that's how they make money. Why would they promote hard work if hard work didn't matter? And if it does matter, then what exactly is your problem with what pg is saying?

bachmeier 5y ago
> the article explicitly agrees with you that just hard work isn't enough It does not in any way agree with me. I am saying luck is important. If that's anywhere in there, I missed it. > Why would they promote hard work if hard work didn't matter? Hard work is not the distinguishing characteristic. Luck is. Why promote hard work? Because someone else is working hard for your benefit.
- lubesGordi 5y ago
  So just to be clear, you're saying that in order to be successful, you have to be lucky, primarily?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - sidlls 5y ago
    I’d agree with that. Luck is absolutely a requirement and it is definitely more important than any other factor.
    - goatlover 5y ago
      What about intelligence and being able to notice emerging trends? Do you think Jobs and Gates were simply lucky in the early 80s? Or did they see what was going on at Xerox PARC and the coming PC revolution? Their less lucky colleagues stayed in college and went on to have normal careers.

going_ham 5y ago

In fact there is a good video from Verassium [1]. One can't discount luck. There is no such thing as hard work. It's just the feeling of being in flow and whatever one does to make you re-live that flow, it's totally worth it. Instead of working on hard problems, it's best to prioritize on optimum problem and get the best out of your situation. With optimum problem, I mean the problems that allow you to maximize your living, instead of believing on moonshot dream. It's okay to dream, but putting expectations on dream is losing touch with reality. Sure in an ideal world, essays like this would be perfect motivation, but you are living in a world ruled by billionaires and plutocrats. So, as long as you get enough share of the pie, I don't think one should pursue the moonshot dream. Rather invest this time on working on job (whole-hardheartedly) only during office hours, and actually try living a life outside of it. You don't have to be a superstar to live a life because humans have already lived for so long. Stop believing these bullshit VC ideas. The real essence of this essay is understanding the flow and noticing the events that triggers flow. [2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I&t=12s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I&t=12s [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354. Flow

luffapi 5y ago
I’ve been feeling great dread lately with the direction our industry is going (has always been going tbh). This conversation gives me some sort of renewed hope though. Hundreds of people admitted hard work burned them out; seeing VCs ask to sacrifice your life for their bottom line. Realizing the role luck plays in success. Maybe covid pushed a significant number of people past their breaking point and now their eyes are wide open. I cannot say, but I’m glad to see so many people are speaking the truth.
- adamors 5y ago
  Check out Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb, it's a great little book that goes over just how much chance goes into one's success (and how oblivious most humans are to detecting this chance).
irajdeep 5y ago
That video from Verassium is spot on.

ceilingcorner 5y ago

Your comment about VCs makes no sense. If a VC wants you to work hard because that’s how a VC gets rich, that means that working hard leads to building a successful company. If it were purely luck, why would the VC care if you worked hard or not?

luffapi 5y ago
If VCs knew what made companies great, they wouldn’t fail 9 out of 10 times. More than any profession I can think of, VC is almost pure luck + how much wealth you already have, which attracts deal flow, which increases your odds to get lucky. PG blogs because he thinks it increases his deal flow (or he wants attention). Just because he’s saying it, it doesn’t make it true, even if he believes his own story.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  That still doesn't answer my question. If hard work had no effect, why would VCs encourage it?
  - luffapi 5y ago
    Because they’re ignorant and think it matters.
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      So they encourage hard work because it makes them money, but not really, because they are only ignorant in thinking that it does, and it's actually entirely luck? Yeah, this attitude is a mental pretzel more akin to ideology than fact.
      - luffapi 5y ago
        They make money through luck. They speak authoritatively out of ignorance. Monkeys rolling dice could do an equally good job, that doesn’t mean you should take advice from a monkey with a gambling problem.

swman 5y ago

Okay, but nobody is going to become anywhere close to Messi without working hard. That's the point. Do you think someone could become Messi by putting in barely any practice or effort? You might get into a team, but you won't be a Messi lol. Be honest with yourself. Obviously luck plays a role, but most people (>90% I'll bet) who are successful in the end get there due to hard work. I could sit on my butt and do nothing all day, and suddenly my doge coin are worth a million bucks. I basically don't know anyone IRL who got mega rich off these things. I know a lot more people IRL who are mega rich because they work hard to this day.

luffapi 5y ago
It’s important to recognize physical activity is very different from mental, creative or social activities. If you can convince people of things, you can be wildly successful. They may listen to you because you speak well, they may listen to you because you’re telling them what they want to hear or they may listen to you because you’re rich. None of which require the rigorous practice of a professional athlete. Same goes for creative endeavors. I can be much more creative (and successful) if I’m well rested vs. grinding. Contrary to you, the most successful people I know didn’t work hard at all. They either inherited cash and a network or they invented something that got huge and they sold it.
- thomastjeffery 5y ago
  > the most successful people I know didn’t work hard at all. They either inherited cash... That's not success.
  - luffapi 5y ago
    I think the vast majority of CEOs and VCs come from the upper class. At least 99% of the execs I know did.
kentosi 5y ago
The parent's comment wan't implying that luck was everything, but to point out that luck is also an important factor. > There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. And luck, Paul. Don't forget luck. Hard work is only sustainable when you occasionally get that carrot at the end of the stick, before moving onto the next bit of hard work.

juanre 5y ago

He is talking about doing great work, not about becoming rich or successful. You do need luck for your great work to take you places, but your own agency counts for much of your ability to do great work. Plenty of great work will not reap great rewards; it is done because someone feels that it has to be done.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

You are arguing a completely different point than PG. PG is talking about the ingredients for "doing great things" and "great work". You are talking about getting rich. Sometimes these are aligned, and sometimes they aren't. It seems like you are looking for a predictive model of who succeeds in society and who doesn't, while PG is offering life advice on the value of hard work (something within an individual's control) - a different topic.

dempsey 5y ago

You have to put yourself in a position to get lucky. Doesn’t mean that you will.

koonsolo 5y ago

If you want to be the best, you will have to work very hard. Claiming that anyone who is at the top of their game isn't working hard, is just plain lying. This doesn't mean that only working hard will get you there. But it does mean that not working hard will not get you there.

RivieraKid 5y ago

Well to be the best in a very large group of people, you need to max out all of the main factors: luck, talent, hard work. That's just statistics. I agree with you though. I find it annoying when people play down the role of luck in their success, it's kind of narcissistic. Unconsciously, they like the feeling that they are better than others, and by achieving success, they prove it to themselves. Giving luck too much credit would break this line of reasoning. Also, one very important but overlooked factor of hard work is that it's highly correlated to the expected reward. It's much easier to work hard at a quickly-growing startup that you co-own, compared to working hard at a regular job that you don't find meaningful. The hard-workers in the former example then think they "deserve" the success because they've been working harder than others, when in fact, they were just lucky.

tim333 5y ago

>He's crossed a line where he believes that the only thing good in the world is what is best for VCs. I don't think he thinks that at all. Check out his article on VCs http://www.paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html http://www.paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html