"But it dawns on me that luck is just the product of all these other qualities." This is definitely true to an extent. You can expose yourself to good luck by

"But it dawns on me that luck is just the product of all these other qualities." This is definitely true to an extent. You can expose yourself to good luck by being prepared, putting yourself out there, etc. But just take a step back, and you can see it's not the whole story. A good chunk of 'luck' is just luck, and another chunk is systemic, inherited, or environmental. Being born in the right country, or the right time, to a moneyed family, being in the right place at the right time when certain events or changes are occurring, by-chance meeting a CEO in the elevator when they're looking for the exact thing your startup provides, having NASA pay you to research something you then turn into a private enterprise, etc, etc.