4 ms·

> I am deeply aware of the fact that I personally would not be where I am if I weren't born incredibly lucky. It's a pity that Sam's comment above was missing

> I am deeply aware of the fact that I personally would not be where I am if I weren't born incredibly lucky. It's a pity that Sam's comment above was missing from the original post, and was added after this discussion on HN. It should have been point #1.

sudhirj 4y ago
It’s covered pretty clearly in the post, in the point about establishing a baseline first through privilege or effort. I don’t think it’s necessary to ask which method(s) the author used/had.
belter 4y ago
Its fair to say, most of the recommended practices, were applied both by every single successful entrepreneur but also every founder who saw their startup fail. The problem of these types of recommendations, like work hard, have self-confidence, think independently, is that they are condition necessary but not sufficient for startup success. It's similar to recommendations on how to make a cake: Make sure the eggs are fresh, measure well the amount of sugar and the oven temperature. None of that will guarantee a prize winning cake:-) A great piece of advice for founders would be on how to found a startup, and despite consuming 30 millions dollars, still manage to find a buyer willing to pay 43 million dollars for the business. The explanation of those details could provide the business acumen, insight and experience many young founders require. Certainly all, successful and less successful founders, are focused, working hard, and thinking independently. Otherwise they would not be startup founders. "In 2005, at age 19,[9] Altman co-founded and became CEO of Loopt,[10] a location-based social networking mobile application. After raising more than $30M in venture capital, Loopt was shut down in 2012 after failing to get traction. It was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
  > "In 2005, at age 19,[9] Altman co-founded and became CEO of Loopt,[10] a location-based social networking mobile application. After raising more than $30M in venture capital, Loopt was shut down in 2012 after failing to get traction. It was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million." What a great success...create tons of hype, run the company into the ground and offload overpriced equity onto a bigger fool. The American dream. No wonder he likes Musk so much. It's basically the same modus operandi. Title suggestion for next blog-post: "How to fail upwards" also "How to play poker with chips payed for with teachers pensions funds"
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    "No wonder he likes Musk so much. It's basically the same modus operandi." Both SpaceX and Tesla got helluva lot of traction. The US now depends on the Falcon/Dragon combo to get American astronauts into the orbit, a task which Boeing so far failed to accomplish. And the Ukrainian artillery is pounding Russian targets to pulp with use of Starlink How this is basically the same as Loopt, I cannot see.
    - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
      Musk has been at the helm of Tesla for 20 years and in that timeframe he didn't even manage to get to 1% of total vehicles sold globally. In FY21 Tesla still accounted for 0.9% of vehicles sold globally. And it was a slow year for the global auto industry. That's basically after billions of tax breaks and subsidies at the County, State and Federal level, which were showered on Tesla during the last 20 years, not even mentioning the blind eye that regulators turned on Tesla and Musk personally because they all bought into the narrative that he was Phoney Stark. Again not even 1% in 20 years. SpaceX is totally dependant upon the goodwill of taxpayers, the moment they lose interest in space, then down goes SpaceX. The only traction that a person anchored in reality sees is the cult of personality and techo-utopianism that mr. Musk managed to create around himself.
      - inglor_cz 4y ago
        Your space argument is extremely misleading. Space industry in general is dependent on government orders, this is not a unique problem of SpaceX / Musk. How long do you think that Boeing or Morton Thiokol space facilities would survive if the US space program were shuttered? Unless you consider the entire space activity of humanity a kind of cult/scam/hype, you have to admit that SpaceX technology is competitive.
        Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
- belter 4y ago
  So after reading the quote I posted from the Wikipedia article, my curiosity led me to look into this deal a bit more. Official announcement (2012): "https://ir.greendot.com/news-releases/news-release-details/green-dot-acquire-loopt https://ir.greendot.com/news-releases/news-release-details/g..." Couple of interesting bits: So Sequoia Capital had done a 20 million series B into Green Dot Corporation ( now GreenDotBank ) followed by a private equity investment according to public records. By the acquisition time the initial funding of Green Dot was recorded as total of 33 million dollars. Now it happens Sequoia Capital was also a VC for Loopt, and had put at least 17 million dollars into Loopt, also according to public records. The deal was 43 million in cash! including 10 million dollars for employee retention of Loopt employees. Now such a good deal, is what I call the definition of success. And how to close one of these would be a blog worth writing...
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > necessary but not sufficient The term for it is "risk". Successful people often fail many times, but each time they get up again, learn what went wrong, and try again. Losers quit before they start.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
imgabe 4y ago
No, this endless need to prostrate yourself and attribute everything to luck is silly and harmful. What does that tell people in less fortunate circumstances? Sorry, you weren’t lucky, too bad. Better just hope some lucky person fixes everything for you because you have no agency over your own life.
- treyfitty 4y ago
  You seem to be under the impression that developing palatable narratives for the less fortunate is an objective. Says who? Just because it doesn’t sound fair, that doesn’t mean we can ignore it’s existence. More harmful, we can’t coddle people into believing everyone is very much capable of success and it’s an equal playing field. It’s not. Entropy and randomness exists. Agency exists. People don’t generally attribute success to solely one or the other. However, think about this: if the objective function is $10MM net worth, and there are two variables, luck & agency, and each variable has a threshold one must exceed before contributing to the objective function, it’s easy to see that randomness (luck) will contribute to your networth, more so than grokking (agency) it. In other words, a small amount of luck has a larger effect than a small amount of agency. But, if small amount of luck translated to $10MM net worth, isn’t that lucky by definition? Conversely, if a small amount of agency translated to $10MM net worth, what does that mean? Can you say that it was all your efforts that solely got you to $10MM net worth?
  - imgabe 4y ago
    Nobody is saying it’s all one or the other. One you can control, so that is where it’s useful to focus your attention. It’s not a simple made up equation with two variables and an outcome. It’s an iterative game you play over and over again throughout your life.
    - treyfitty 4y ago
      > "this endless need to prostrate yourself and attribute everything to luck is silly and harmful" ...you're saying it in your post that everyone is saying it.
dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
>> I am deeply aware of the fact that I personally would not be where I am if I weren't born incredibly lucky. >It's a pity that Sam's comment above was missing from the original post, and was added after this discussion on HN. It should have been point #1 Which translate into the following advice: choose your parents wisely.
WalterBright 4y ago
People often say this as a form of virtue signalling. Whether they believe it or not is another matter entirely. Successful people make their own luck, and spend a lot of effort making it easy for luck to find them. For example, if you never leave your basement, you're unlikely to get lucky finding a life partner.
- papito 4y ago
  The Chinese say "luck is the combination of hard work and opportunity". It requires both. There are limitless scenarios in which the same type of hard work will give you a completely different result, if the opportunity never comes. This is why I am so annoyed by the Left and the Right simplistic view of this. The Left: "You are rich because your are privileged!" The Right: "You are poor because you are not working hard enough!" Oh, how do I hate both.
  - belter 4y ago
    Research seems to indicate successful persons, underestimate the role luck had in their success. "Is Success Luck or Hard Work?": https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      The details are luck, but the overall arch is much less so. For example, if you: 1. stay in school 2. don't do drugs 3. don't do crimes your odds of being "lucky" in life rise considerably.
      - scollet 4y ago
        I too wish life were an RPG of binary choices.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        Lots of people like to think they don't have choices. But they make choices every day.
WalterBright 4y ago
An unlucky man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg. "Oh, I'm so unlucky, I just broke my leg!" A lucky man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg. "Phew, I'm so lucky I didn't break my skull!"

sudhirj 4y ago

It’s covered pretty clearly in the post, in the point about establishing a baseline first through privilege or effort. I don’t think it’s necessary to ask which method(s) the author used/had.

belter 4y ago

Its fair to say, most of the recommended practices, were applied both by every single successful entrepreneur but also every founder who saw their startup fail. The problem of these types of recommendations, like work hard, have self-confidence, think independently, is that they are condition necessary but not sufficient for startup success. It's similar to recommendations on how to make a cake: Make sure the eggs are fresh, measure well the amount of sugar and the oven temperature. None of that will guarantee a prize winning cake:-) A great piece of advice for founders would be on how to found a startup, and despite consuming 30 millions dollars, still manage to find a buyer willing to pay 43 million dollars for the business. The explanation of those details could provide the business acumen, insight and experience many young founders require. Certainly all, successful and less successful founders, are focused, working hard, and thinking independently. Otherwise they would not be startup founders. "In 2005, at age 19,[9] Altman co-founded and became CEO of Loopt,[10] a location-based social networking mobile application. After raising more than $30M in venture capital, Loopt was shut down in 2012 after failing to get traction. It was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman

Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
> "In 2005, at age 19,[9] Altman co-founded and became CEO of Loopt,[10] a location-based social networking mobile application. After raising more than $30M in venture capital, Loopt was shut down in 2012 after failing to get traction. It was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million." What a great success...create tons of hype, run the company into the ground and offload overpriced equity onto a bigger fool. The American dream. No wonder he likes Musk so much. It's basically the same modus operandi. Title suggestion for next blog-post: "How to fail upwards" also "How to play poker with chips payed for with teachers pensions funds"
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  "No wonder he likes Musk so much. It's basically the same modus operandi." Both SpaceX and Tesla got helluva lot of traction. The US now depends on the Falcon/Dragon combo to get American astronauts into the orbit, a task which Boeing so far failed to accomplish. And the Ukrainian artillery is pounding Russian targets to pulp with use of Starlink How this is basically the same as Loopt, I cannot see.
  - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
    Musk has been at the helm of Tesla for 20 years and in that timeframe he didn't even manage to get to 1% of total vehicles sold globally. In FY21 Tesla still accounted for 0.9% of vehicles sold globally. And it was a slow year for the global auto industry. That's basically after billions of tax breaks and subsidies at the County, State and Federal level, which were showered on Tesla during the last 20 years, not even mentioning the blind eye that regulators turned on Tesla and Musk personally because they all bought into the narrative that he was Phoney Stark. Again not even 1% in 20 years. SpaceX is totally dependant upon the goodwill of taxpayers, the moment they lose interest in space, then down goes SpaceX. The only traction that a person anchored in reality sees is the cult of personality and techo-utopianism that mr. Musk managed to create around himself.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      Your space argument is extremely misleading. Space industry in general is dependent on government orders, this is not a unique problem of SpaceX / Musk. How long do you think that Boeing or Morton Thiokol space facilities would survive if the US space program were shuttered? Unless you consider the entire space activity of humanity a kind of cult/scam/hype, you have to admit that SpaceX technology is competitive.
      - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
belter 4y ago
So after reading the quote I posted from the Wikipedia article, my curiosity led me to look into this deal a bit more. Official announcement (2012): "https://ir.greendot.com/news-releases/news-release-details/green-dot-acquire-loopt https://ir.greendot.com/news-releases/news-release-details/g..." Couple of interesting bits: So Sequoia Capital had done a 20 million series B into Green Dot Corporation ( now GreenDotBank ) followed by a private equity investment according to public records. By the acquisition time the initial funding of Green Dot was recorded as total of 33 million dollars. Now it happens Sequoia Capital was also a VC for Loopt, and had put at least 17 million dollars into Loopt, also according to public records. The deal was 43 million in cash! including 10 million dollars for employee retention of Loopt employees. Now such a good deal, is what I call the definition of success. And how to close one of these would be a blog worth writing...
WalterBright 4y ago
> necessary but not sufficient The term for it is "risk". Successful people often fail many times, but each time they get up again, learn what went wrong, and try again. Losers quit before they start.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

imgabe 4y ago

No, this endless need to prostrate yourself and attribute everything to luck is silly and harmful. What does that tell people in less fortunate circumstances? Sorry, you weren’t lucky, too bad. Better just hope some lucky person fixes everything for you because you have no agency over your own life.

treyfitty 4y ago
You seem to be under the impression that developing palatable narratives for the less fortunate is an objective. Says who? Just because it doesn’t sound fair, that doesn’t mean we can ignore it’s existence. More harmful, we can’t coddle people into believing everyone is very much capable of success and it’s an equal playing field. It’s not. Entropy and randomness exists. Agency exists. People don’t generally attribute success to solely one or the other. However, think about this: if the objective function is $10MM net worth, and there are two variables, luck & agency, and each variable has a threshold one must exceed before contributing to the objective function, it’s easy to see that randomness (luck) will contribute to your networth, more so than grokking (agency) it. In other words, a small amount of luck has a larger effect than a small amount of agency. But, if small amount of luck translated to $10MM net worth, isn’t that lucky by definition? Conversely, if a small amount of agency translated to $10MM net worth, what does that mean? Can you say that it was all your efforts that solely got you to $10MM net worth?
- imgabe 4y ago
  Nobody is saying it’s all one or the other. One you can control, so that is where it’s useful to focus your attention. It’s not a simple made up equation with two variables and an outcome. It’s an iterative game you play over and over again throughout your life.
  - treyfitty 4y ago
    > "this endless need to prostrate yourself and attribute everything to luck is silly and harmful" ...you're saying it in your post that everyone is saying it.

dennis_jeeves1 4y ago

>> I am deeply aware of the fact that I personally would not be where I am if I weren't born incredibly lucky. >It's a pity that Sam's comment above was missing from the original post, and was added after this discussion on HN. It should have been point #1 Which translate into the following advice: choose your parents wisely.

WalterBright 4y ago

People often say this as a form of virtue signalling. Whether they believe it or not is another matter entirely. Successful people make their own luck, and spend a lot of effort making it easy for luck to find them. For example, if you never leave your basement, you're unlikely to get lucky finding a life partner.

papito 4y ago
The Chinese say "luck is the combination of hard work and opportunity". It requires both. There are limitless scenarios in which the same type of hard work will give you a completely different result, if the opportunity never comes. This is why I am so annoyed by the Left and the Right simplistic view of this. The Left: "You are rich because your are privileged!" The Right: "You are poor because you are not working hard enough!" Oh, how do I hate both.
- belter 4y ago
  Research seems to indicate successful persons, underestimate the role luck had in their success. "Is Success Luck or Hard Work?": https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    The details are luck, but the overall arch is much less so. For example, if you: 1. stay in school 2. don't do drugs 3. don't do crimes your odds of being "lucky" in life rise considerably.
    - scollet 4y ago
      I too wish life were an RPG of binary choices.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Lots of people like to think they don't have choices. But they make choices every day.

WalterBright 4y ago

An unlucky man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg. "Oh, I'm so unlucky, I just broke my leg!" A lucky man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg. "Phew, I'm so lucky I didn't break my skull!"