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Maybe a bit OT: The other day I read an interview with a local guy in his 20s that struck gold with crypto, he'd invest something like $20k, and turned it into

Maybe a bit OT: The other day I read an interview with a local guy in his 20s that struck gold with crypto, he'd invest something like $20k, and turned it into $40M. He basically went all in on one alt-coin before the marked exploded late last year, and the coin went up 2000x. When asked about it, he of course came up with a narrative that this wasn't just dumb luck. He had had worked hard for those $20k, and he had lost his shirt many times prior to this. But in the end, he was patting has own back and saying that it was his savviness which resulted in his newfound wealth. And if others were to follow his steps, they'd need to spend countless hours watching the charts and reading whitepapers. He had now mostly exited from crypto, retiring from his "old life", and being a full-time investor (VC for startups). Can you imagine if some newspaper interviewed a recent lottery winner, with the winner detailing how he'd planned it all along? But to the ignorant, it all sounds very impressive.

sbarre 4y ago
Rich people never want to acknowledge their luck, because it doesn't fit the "self-made" narrative. edit: to please the pedants, I should have said "many rich people", as to not imply "all". My fault.
- corndoge 4y ago
  Cynical but doesn't match my experience, plenty of rich people acknowledge luck
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  - jrm4 4y ago
    I bet there's a selection thing going on there. Most people, not being rich, aren't around rich people -- and so the rich people they "see" are exactly the type to not acknowledge luck, Trump perhaps being an extreme here.
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- PopAlongKid 4y ago
  The "luck" of many wealthy people is that they were born to wealthy parents (Walton family, Gates, etc).
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  - steveBK123 4y ago
    Yes, this is generally underestimated. The closer I've worked with this class the more it becomes apparent in quiet anecdotes that don't always make the official bios or wikis. Most self-made billionaires came from at least millionaire families. Generally hard working, smart guys with a lot of skill & luck, but they start at a level we can only dream that maybe our children or grandchildren can start from. I once worked for a billionaire investor who told us how he got started investing when his father offered him the choice at 13 years old: have his birthday party at one of the most famous & expensive hotels in NYC, or take the cash value of that to invest in stocks. The dollar figure seemed to be something like the equivalent of $50k in 2020 dollars. Much like orange man who got "a small loan of $1M from his father", I am sure the $50k given to a 13 year old was not the first or the last paternal investment. Another firm managing ~$10B there was a guy who unbelievably made it to the C-suite in his 20s. It was never clear exactly what the connection was, but he was some sort of family friend of the founder and worked for him as a teen. He was also related to a big bank CEO.
    - boeingUH60 4y ago
      > Another firm managing ~$10B there was a guy who unbelievably made it to the C-suite in his 20s. It was never clear exactly what the connection was, but he was some sort of family friend of the founder and worked for him as a teen. He was also related to a big bank CEO. Sounds like Matthew Grimes, lol https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-28/from-intern-to-co-defendant-barrack-protege-faces-loyalty-test https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-28/from-inte...
      - steveBK123 4y ago
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
  The nuanced take is that luck is something that can be “made” through putting oneself in situations conducive to getting lucky through exposure, networking, and repeated attempts / not giving up. You might be able to get successful people to admit that they were in the right place at the right time, but they’ll almost always qualify that with how much effort they put in to be in that situation.
  - fabianhjr 4y ago
    > repeated attempts / not giving up Being able to afford that wouldn't be lucky, it would imply some sort of per-existing wealth or at least a solid support network.
    - BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
      That’s true, and the extent of how necessary that existing wealth and support network is depends on the kind of venture. For starting a business, absolutely. But there are other kinds of success that aren’t as entrepreneurial. I was presenting it primarily through the lens of a mindset that is undaunted by failure and having the motivation to avoid giving up prematurely. Successful writers and entertainers often share stories about how they were rejected dozens and dozens of times before finally getting noticed. I have friends who wanted to change careers by moving to a different industry and they must have submitted hundreds of job applications before they managed to get their junior level role.
    - shukantpal 4y ago
      Or that could be earned
    - danaris 4y ago
      ...Which you have in the first place by being lucky in your birth.
  - atmavatar 4y ago
    If you want to catch a MLB game ball, you have to a) attend a game, b) pay attention to every ball hit, c) practice actually catching a ball, and (for some) bring a glove. If you're particularly savvy, you can even purchase tickets for seats in an area to where balls are commonly hit, and if you're determined, you can go to lots of games. However, you're only getting that ball if it's hit in your direction. You can attend hundreds of games and still never have one hit close enough to catch. While missing one or more preparation steps (e.g., attending a game) may rule out the possibility of catching a game ball, for every person who does catch one, there are dozens if not hundreds of people who prepare at least as much and still never do.
- manigandham 4y ago
  Many rich people do acknowledge it, because another way to say it is odds or opportunities. And you can absolutely increase the likelihood of getting "lucky" through work.
- 2devnull 4y ago
  “You know, some people got no choice, and they can never find a voice, to talk with that they can even call their own. So the first thing that they see, that allows them the right to be, why they follow it, you know, it’s called bad luck.” Lou Reed
- tasty_freeze 4y ago
  There are plenty of 1%-ers who work hard and they ascribe their success to their hard work and intelligence. But it ignores that there are many people who work harder, are more intelligent, or both, who don't get to those heights. That is the luck aspect. If one is on top of the heap, it is convenient to believe in meritocracy, doubly so. On the one hand, it makes the person feel they earned what they have, and second it means the poor are also getting what they deserve and so there is no need to artificially prop them up. "Those people" should have worked harder.
  - nightski 4y ago
    It's also because working "hard" isn't enough. You have to put your effort where it matters. That is so often overlooked.
    - idlehand 4y ago
      Working hard implies the labor theory of value, which is that all work is interchangeable. While that might have been closer to the truth during the first industrial revolution, the variability in the value of labor has never been higher than today. It's comforting to think that those that have achieved the best outcomes in life have simply sacrificed time spent on other things, and spent more time on work. There might be some truth in that, but often they have had better opportunities, due to both circumstance and luck, that they also have made better use of than average.
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      - ddingus 4y ago
        Luck plays a role. A significant one. But so do you! Here's an example from my own life: In the late 80's, heading into the early 90's I was working in manufacturing. Paid poorly, but man! I love that work. Had a great time, worked with people who had real skills and built up a set of my own too. Saw the outsource waves coming hard. They were big and they were going to gut manufacturing. We all talked about it. Few of us really did anything about it. I was one of the ones who did. I started networking. Got out there, started having lunches with people, attending various groups, all sorts of stuff. Fast forward today: I'm running a startup with a partner doing work with metal additive technologies after a 25 year run in CAD / PLM. Back to manufacturing as an reshoring wave is headed our way. For many doing the work the pay is still not great, but more opportunities are out there now than there have been for a long time. My peers from that time period are mostly doing the same work, for almost the same pay ( and if that doesn't speak to some troublesome economic policy, I do not know what does ), or are employed in other fields. A few of us moved up and into another class basically. Lucky? Hell yes! But, had I not done the networking, I know absolutely I would not be in the position I am in today. In a basic sense, this all works a bit like a lottery or raffle. Consider each interaction with others a ticket. The game is going to reward X number of tickets. And Y tickets may be rewarded due to unplanned opportunity happening as a result of a group of people realizing something is an opportunity that they would not have realized apart or in a different context. There are Z tickets total, let's say. People who are active in this way, talking with others, helping others out, seeking help, and doing projects, whatever they can do, get a lot more tickets than most people do. And because of that they seem more lucky because more of them find opportunity than the baseline people not so active do. Now, I have one other thing to say and that is about the "do what you love and money will follow" many people say is really only applicable to well off people who are somehow enabled to do what they love because their basic needs are covered somehow, or put another way, they are just not needy which frees them up to explore what they love. The truth is many of us can do what we love and money will follow, but it's hard work!! What I did was work my job and put 20 percent of my free time into "hobbies" that were skill builders toward "what I love" and that activity coupled with the networking and helping others is what got me a lot of those raffle tickets to better opportunities!! I spent a ton of time doing electronics and programming on my own. A lot of it was retro computer based because I love retro computing. That 8 bit era is so damn much fun! I still love it. But, I also used it as a vehicle to build skills I would need later on, and it all worked out. Working on bigger systems helped too. I didn't put all my time into 8 bitters. I had SGI unix systems purchased off ebay, a couple pretty good Linux machines assembled from parts I got many different ways. And I setup an electronics lab made of second hand gear, some things I made myself, and a few gifts from people or trades I got helping others out too. When opportunity presented itself I knew enough to be able to go for it and knew enough people to get help too. Don't get me wrong. I've been lucky. Others I know will own their own luck too. ( in comfortable conversation ) But, I also maximized my chances. The cost was a bit less free play time than my peers had, but really it was also time I really enjoyed because it was invested in things I love to do and that really interest me. Mostly, I didn't catch as many movies and as many parties. No joke! But, I had many more interesting lunches meeting great people doing all sorts of stuff!! I am nor sure that was a cost as much as it was just living differently. To sum up: Sometimes a person gets noticed, or a co-worker can lend a hand up. This happens sometimes, but not too often. More often a person gets noticed when they are active among other people. This happens more often. Getting noticed is "that person deserves an opportunity", or "I know a guy who can get this done", or, "Did you see her project? It lines right up...." Helping others often results in those others wanting to help us in return! Not always, but pretty often. Doing stuff results in skills, stories one can tell, reasons to talk with others, and a general increase in competency and capability. All that type of activity is what does tend to very seriously increase one's chance of a "luck" event happening! They are also what can very seriously improve one's ability to take advantage of a "luck" event, which is what I call an opportunity, generally speaking. All of what I just said is what one can do when having means, available capital isn't on the table. Wasn't for me. I came from poverty. And there is no shame in poverty. It sucks. Way too many of us are there and it's not OK. There is a policy discussion to have one day soon. And we should have already had that discussion. Like I said, we should have it one day soon. The shame, if there is any at all, boils down to those of us able to help others out not doing it. And in like kind, those of us needing help, some opportunity, not doing things to increase our chances of seeing opportunity and being able to act on it in a meaningful way. *Labor theory of value* I think you are right about work not being interchangeable. It's not been that way in my experience. Some work is. Other work isn't, and people and their basic nature vary widely too. This does imply just working hard isn't enough. I don't agree with that at all! What you do matters. And "working hard" means doing more of the kinds of things needed to improve luck more of the time in my view.
- CM30 4y ago
  Not just rich people, successful people in general hate to acknowledge the role luck played in their success. It's really obvious on communities devoted to becoming successful at a certain hobby or venture, like blogging, video creation, live streaming, SEO/marketing, game development, startups, etc. Those who made it big will talk about it's all skill and how their amazingly strategies and hard work paid off, whereas those who failed will be talking about its all luck based, how their timing was off and how they didn't have the connections needed to succeed. It's called self-serving bias, and it's everywhere in society.
- jl6 4y ago
  “Which contributes more to wealth: luck or hard work? Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle: height or width?”
  - nightski 4y ago
    By framing the problem like this you are making the assumption the variables are independent which is very much not the case. Your work can influence your luck, and even how much effect said luck has.
    - redler 4y ago
      Luck indeed finds you hard at work. But also, if you’re not sitting at the table, you’re on the menu.
      - nightski 4y ago
        That hasn't really been my experience, but ymmv. But it's also why we should fight so much against centralization in the economy even if it brings efficiency gains. Ideally you'd want to have as large of a table as possible.
etherael 4y ago
Granted that based on probability alone he just got lucky but from the details of the story it's not possible to be certain of that. If he can offer a narrative about why and how he knew such a move would have such a result and the narrative fits with reality, then how is he not correct? Yes you can get both lucky and tragically unlucky when it comes to investments, but that doesnt mean there's no such thing as a rational investment with a high payoff. It's not impossible that's what he did, people do it, it does happen.
- TrackerFF 4y ago
  IIRC, he went all-in on HEX when it was dirt cheap and picking up volume, because it was a staking coin.
  - etherael 4y ago
    Got it, pure luck, no argument.
- hgsgm 4y ago
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Yes, in any cohort of investors, by nature some random sample or going to outperform in any given year. In fact, statistically the concept of "hot hands" will rear its head because.. some subset of the outperformers will actually outperform over multiple years. It may be skill, it may be luck, or it may be both. But consider that this outperformance & hot-hand phenomenon can be replicated even in purely random games like coin flipping. So sometimes taking the "winners" and trying to craft narratives of why they succeeded and what you should do to replicate them is a silly game.
  - etherael 4y ago
    I get what you mean and I agree to an extent, but to give an absurd example, if you knew of a company that had a patent on cold fusion, and you had watched it actually work yourself and deployed it at scale in a project successfully, investing in such a venture and having an outsized return would have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with probability.
B8MGHCBekDuRi 4y ago
> Can you imagine if some newspaper interviewed a recent lottery winner [...] But to the ignorant, it all sounds very impressive the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect described by Crichton comes to mind here. It is quite potent when media talk about crypto and usually involves evident logical fallacies that are not dissimilar to Orwellian double-speak. Like the idea that cash is freedom so crypto supporters also support no cash limits, even though you can't buy crypto with cash and crypto cannot be converted directly to cash and people who won the crypto lottery keep their money in a good old bank when a good old investment manager handles them to buy good old banking products using good old FIAT money taxed by the good old government, because "freedom propaganda" is the best tool to sell a fraud to the ignorant. But media don't write about it, I don't know why.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  > even though you can't buy crypto with cash and crypto cannot be converted directly to cash I have bought and sold crypto primarily using cash for the last ten years, what are you talking about. Yes, many people use an exchange. Many do not.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    Physical cash? How?
    - purpleflame1257 4y ago
      Presumably a Bitcoin ATM
    - none_to_remain 4y ago
      One simple option: Hand someone some cash, they send you some BTC
      - nibbleshifter 4y ago
        Precisely this. There's nothing complex about it either. You get a bunch of cash, they get btc, or vice versa.
lullab 4y ago
Maybe the real takeaway from his story is to bet big in a new market to get rich. And if you lose it all, earn more and do it again. It would have happened in the early days of the internet just the same. Yes, it's incredibly risky but at least it has a better chance than playing the lottery. Like Nassim Taleb says, bet on things with a limited downside and unlimited upside. And if you don't try, nothing will happen.
- hgsgm 4y ago
- 2devnull 4y ago
  “things with a limited downside and unlimited upside” Penny stocks and junk bonds, a classic recipe for attaining mega wealth.
  - eyphka 4y ago
    That is how Warren Buffet got started, or as he called them, used cigarbuts.
    - ffggffggj 4y ago
      It also helped that his father was a congressman and stock trader who brought Buffet around his finance friends throughout his youth and helped him start buying stocks as a young teenager.
  - lullab 4y ago
    Theoretically yes. Even putting it all on black in Vegas could work. But it doesn't mean you should do it. Any investment is inherently a gamble, some are riskier than others and some have a too small payoff for the risk.
- jrm4 4y ago
  I mean, lets get Taleb exactly right here: He basically says don't invest "moderately," -- like putting your large amounts of money in stocks, even index funds, is a bad idea. Invest in both extremes, barbell style. Put MOST of it in something bulletproof (he goes with Treasury Bonds) and then the rest as big bets on long shots.
627467 4y ago
It takes a certain combination of work/knowledge/luck to profit from anything in life. Seems reductionist to equate buying low and selling at peak to buying a lottery ticket. But so it does to claim hard work has been the main reason why financial investors profit
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  >It takes a certain combination of work/knowledge/luck to profit from anything in life. Plenty of people 'profiting' on the wealth of their parents, grandparents, etc. when they themselves have never worked a day in their life and don't have much knowledge of anything. Inherited wealth is an obvious contradiction to the meritocracy that so many people believe we live within today.
  - 627467 4y ago
    If my response seemed to support the idea of meritocracy as a fact it was unintended. Obviously I missed "inheritance" or family-estate from the triad.
kfarr 4y ago
Perfect example of fundamental attribution error
laserlight 4y ago
Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1827/ https://xkcd.com/1827/

sbarre 4y ago

Rich people never want to acknowledge their luck, because it doesn't fit the "self-made" narrative. edit: to please the pedants, I should have said "many rich people", as to not imply "all". My fault.

corndoge 4y ago
Cynical but doesn't match my experience, plenty of rich people acknowledge luck
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- jrm4 4y ago
  I bet there's a selection thing going on there. Most people, not being rich, aren't around rich people -- and so the rich people they "see" are exactly the type to not acknowledge luck, Trump perhaps being an extreme here.
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PopAlongKid 4y ago
The "luck" of many wealthy people is that they were born to wealthy parents (Walton family, Gates, etc).
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- steveBK123 4y ago
  Yes, this is generally underestimated. The closer I've worked with this class the more it becomes apparent in quiet anecdotes that don't always make the official bios or wikis. Most self-made billionaires came from at least millionaire families. Generally hard working, smart guys with a lot of skill & luck, but they start at a level we can only dream that maybe our children or grandchildren can start from. I once worked for a billionaire investor who told us how he got started investing when his father offered him the choice at 13 years old: have his birthday party at one of the most famous & expensive hotels in NYC, or take the cash value of that to invest in stocks. The dollar figure seemed to be something like the equivalent of $50k in 2020 dollars. Much like orange man who got "a small loan of $1M from his father", I am sure the $50k given to a 13 year old was not the first or the last paternal investment. Another firm managing ~$10B there was a guy who unbelievably made it to the C-suite in his 20s. It was never clear exactly what the connection was, but he was some sort of family friend of the founder and worked for him as a teen. He was also related to a big bank CEO.
  - boeingUH60 4y ago
    > Another firm managing ~$10B there was a guy who unbelievably made it to the C-suite in his 20s. It was never clear exactly what the connection was, but he was some sort of family friend of the founder and worked for him as a teen. He was also related to a big bank CEO. Sounds like Matthew Grimes, lol https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-28/from-intern-to-co-defendant-barrack-protege-faces-loyalty-test https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-28/from-inte...
    - steveBK123 4y ago
BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
The nuanced take is that luck is something that can be “made” through putting oneself in situations conducive to getting lucky through exposure, networking, and repeated attempts / not giving up. You might be able to get successful people to admit that they were in the right place at the right time, but they’ll almost always qualify that with how much effort they put in to be in that situation.
- fabianhjr 4y ago
  > repeated attempts / not giving up Being able to afford that wouldn't be lucky, it would imply some sort of per-existing wealth or at least a solid support network.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
    That’s true, and the extent of how necessary that existing wealth and support network is depends on the kind of venture. For starting a business, absolutely. But there are other kinds of success that aren’t as entrepreneurial. I was presenting it primarily through the lens of a mindset that is undaunted by failure and having the motivation to avoid giving up prematurely. Successful writers and entertainers often share stories about how they were rejected dozens and dozens of times before finally getting noticed. I have friends who wanted to change careers by moving to a different industry and they must have submitted hundreds of job applications before they managed to get their junior level role.
  - shukantpal 4y ago
    Or that could be earned
  - danaris 4y ago
    ...Which you have in the first place by being lucky in your birth.
- atmavatar 4y ago
  If you want to catch a MLB game ball, you have to a) attend a game, b) pay attention to every ball hit, c) practice actually catching a ball, and (for some) bring a glove. If you're particularly savvy, you can even purchase tickets for seats in an area to where balls are commonly hit, and if you're determined, you can go to lots of games. However, you're only getting that ball if it's hit in your direction. You can attend hundreds of games and still never have one hit close enough to catch. While missing one or more preparation steps (e.g., attending a game) may rule out the possibility of catching a game ball, for every person who does catch one, there are dozens if not hundreds of people who prepare at least as much and still never do.
manigandham 4y ago
Many rich people do acknowledge it, because another way to say it is odds or opportunities. And you can absolutely increase the likelihood of getting "lucky" through work.
2devnull 4y ago
“You know, some people got no choice, and they can never find a voice, to talk with that they can even call their own. So the first thing that they see, that allows them the right to be, why they follow it, you know, it’s called bad luck.” Lou Reed
tasty_freeze 4y ago
There are plenty of 1%-ers who work hard and they ascribe their success to their hard work and intelligence. But it ignores that there are many people who work harder, are more intelligent, or both, who don't get to those heights. That is the luck aspect. If one is on top of the heap, it is convenient to believe in meritocracy, doubly so. On the one hand, it makes the person feel they earned what they have, and second it means the poor are also getting what they deserve and so there is no need to artificially prop them up. "Those people" should have worked harder.
- nightski 4y ago
  It's also because working "hard" isn't enough. You have to put your effort where it matters. That is so often overlooked.
  - idlehand 4y ago
    Working hard implies the labor theory of value, which is that all work is interchangeable. While that might have been closer to the truth during the first industrial revolution, the variability in the value of labor has never been higher than today. It's comforting to think that those that have achieved the best outcomes in life have simply sacrificed time spent on other things, and spent more time on work. There might be some truth in that, but often they have had better opportunities, due to both circumstance and luck, that they also have made better use of than average.
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    - ddingus 4y ago
      Luck plays a role. A significant one. But so do you! Here's an example from my own life: In the late 80's, heading into the early 90's I was working in manufacturing. Paid poorly, but man! I love that work. Had a great time, worked with people who had real skills and built up a set of my own too. Saw the outsource waves coming hard. They were big and they were going to gut manufacturing. We all talked about it. Few of us really did anything about it. I was one of the ones who did. I started networking. Got out there, started having lunches with people, attending various groups, all sorts of stuff. Fast forward today: I'm running a startup with a partner doing work with metal additive technologies after a 25 year run in CAD / PLM. Back to manufacturing as an reshoring wave is headed our way. For many doing the work the pay is still not great, but more opportunities are out there now than there have been for a long time. My peers from that time period are mostly doing the same work, for almost the same pay ( and if that doesn't speak to some troublesome economic policy, I do not know what does ), or are employed in other fields. A few of us moved up and into another class basically. Lucky? Hell yes! But, had I not done the networking, I know absolutely I would not be in the position I am in today. In a basic sense, this all works a bit like a lottery or raffle. Consider each interaction with others a ticket. The game is going to reward X number of tickets. And Y tickets may be rewarded due to unplanned opportunity happening as a result of a group of people realizing something is an opportunity that they would not have realized apart or in a different context. There are Z tickets total, let's say. People who are active in this way, talking with others, helping others out, seeking help, and doing projects, whatever they can do, get a lot more tickets than most people do. And because of that they seem more lucky because more of them find opportunity than the baseline people not so active do. Now, I have one other thing to say and that is about the "do what you love and money will follow" many people say is really only applicable to well off people who are somehow enabled to do what they love because their basic needs are covered somehow, or put another way, they are just not needy which frees them up to explore what they love. The truth is many of us can do what we love and money will follow, but it's hard work!! What I did was work my job and put 20 percent of my free time into "hobbies" that were skill builders toward "what I love" and that activity coupled with the networking and helping others is what got me a lot of those raffle tickets to better opportunities!! I spent a ton of time doing electronics and programming on my own. A lot of it was retro computer based because I love retro computing. That 8 bit era is so damn much fun! I still love it. But, I also used it as a vehicle to build skills I would need later on, and it all worked out. Working on bigger systems helped too. I didn't put all my time into 8 bitters. I had SGI unix systems purchased off ebay, a couple pretty good Linux machines assembled from parts I got many different ways. And I setup an electronics lab made of second hand gear, some things I made myself, and a few gifts from people or trades I got helping others out too. When opportunity presented itself I knew enough to be able to go for it and knew enough people to get help too. Don't get me wrong. I've been lucky. Others I know will own their own luck too. ( in comfortable conversation ) But, I also maximized my chances. The cost was a bit less free play time than my peers had, but really it was also time I really enjoyed because it was invested in things I love to do and that really interest me. Mostly, I didn't catch as many movies and as many parties. No joke! But, I had many more interesting lunches meeting great people doing all sorts of stuff!! I am nor sure that was a cost as much as it was just living differently. To sum up: Sometimes a person gets noticed, or a co-worker can lend a hand up. This happens sometimes, but not too often. More often a person gets noticed when they are active among other people. This happens more often. Getting noticed is "that person deserves an opportunity", or "I know a guy who can get this done", or, "Did you see her project? It lines right up...." Helping others often results in those others wanting to help us in return! Not always, but pretty often. Doing stuff results in skills, stories one can tell, reasons to talk with others, and a general increase in competency and capability. All that type of activity is what does tend to very seriously increase one's chance of a "luck" event happening! They are also what can very seriously improve one's ability to take advantage of a "luck" event, which is what I call an opportunity, generally speaking. All of what I just said is what one can do when having means, available capital isn't on the table. Wasn't for me. I came from poverty. And there is no shame in poverty. It sucks. Way too many of us are there and it's not OK. There is a policy discussion to have one day soon. And we should have already had that discussion. Like I said, we should have it one day soon. The shame, if there is any at all, boils down to those of us able to help others out not doing it. And in like kind, those of us needing help, some opportunity, not doing things to increase our chances of seeing opportunity and being able to act on it in a meaningful way. *Labor theory of value* I think you are right about work not being interchangeable. It's not been that way in my experience. Some work is. Other work isn't, and people and their basic nature vary widely too. This does imply just working hard isn't enough. I don't agree with that at all! What you do matters. And "working hard" means doing more of the kinds of things needed to improve luck more of the time in my view.
CM30 4y ago
Not just rich people, successful people in general hate to acknowledge the role luck played in their success. It's really obvious on communities devoted to becoming successful at a certain hobby or venture, like blogging, video creation, live streaming, SEO/marketing, game development, startups, etc. Those who made it big will talk about it's all skill and how their amazingly strategies and hard work paid off, whereas those who failed will be talking about its all luck based, how their timing was off and how they didn't have the connections needed to succeed. It's called self-serving bias, and it's everywhere in society.
jl6 4y ago
“Which contributes more to wealth: luck or hard work? Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle: height or width?”
- nightski 4y ago
  By framing the problem like this you are making the assumption the variables are independent which is very much not the case. Your work can influence your luck, and even how much effect said luck has.
  - redler 4y ago
    Luck indeed finds you hard at work. But also, if you’re not sitting at the table, you’re on the menu.
    - nightski 4y ago
      That hasn't really been my experience, but ymmv. But it's also why we should fight so much against centralization in the economy even if it brings efficiency gains. Ideally you'd want to have as large of a table as possible.

etherael 4y ago

Granted that based on probability alone he just got lucky but from the details of the story it's not possible to be certain of that. If he can offer a narrative about why and how he knew such a move would have such a result and the narrative fits with reality, then how is he not correct? Yes you can get both lucky and tragically unlucky when it comes to investments, but that doesnt mean there's no such thing as a rational investment with a high payoff. It's not impossible that's what he did, people do it, it does happen.

TrackerFF 4y ago
IIRC, he went all-in on HEX when it was dirt cheap and picking up volume, because it was a staking coin.
- etherael 4y ago
  Got it, pure luck, no argument.
hgsgm 4y ago
steveBK123 4y ago
Yes, in any cohort of investors, by nature some random sample or going to outperform in any given year. In fact, statistically the concept of "hot hands" will rear its head because.. some subset of the outperformers will actually outperform over multiple years. It may be skill, it may be luck, or it may be both. But consider that this outperformance & hot-hand phenomenon can be replicated even in purely random games like coin flipping. So sometimes taking the "winners" and trying to craft narratives of why they succeeded and what you should do to replicate them is a silly game.
- etherael 4y ago
  I get what you mean and I agree to an extent, but to give an absurd example, if you knew of a company that had a patent on cold fusion, and you had watched it actually work yourself and deployed it at scale in a project successfully, investing in such a venture and having an outsized return would have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with probability.

B8MGHCBekDuRi 4y ago

> Can you imagine if some newspaper interviewed a recent lottery winner [...] But to the ignorant, it all sounds very impressive the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect described by Crichton comes to mind here. It is quite potent when media talk about crypto and usually involves evident logical fallacies that are not dissimilar to Orwellian double-speak. Like the idea that cash is freedom so crypto supporters also support no cash limits, even though you can't buy crypto with cash and crypto cannot be converted directly to cash and people who won the crypto lottery keep their money in a good old bank when a good old investment manager handles them to buy good old banking products using good old FIAT money taxed by the good old government, because "freedom propaganda" is the best tool to sell a fraud to the ignorant. But media don't write about it, I don't know why.

nibbleshifter 4y ago
> even though you can't buy crypto with cash and crypto cannot be converted directly to cash I have bought and sold crypto primarily using cash for the last ten years, what are you talking about. Yes, many people use an exchange. Many do not.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Physical cash? How?
  - purpleflame1257 4y ago
    Presumably a Bitcoin ATM
  - none_to_remain 4y ago
    One simple option: Hand someone some cash, they send you some BTC
    - nibbleshifter 4y ago
      Precisely this. There's nothing complex about it either. You get a bunch of cash, they get btc, or vice versa.

lullab 4y ago

Maybe the real takeaway from his story is to bet big in a new market to get rich. And if you lose it all, earn more and do it again. It would have happened in the early days of the internet just the same. Yes, it's incredibly risky but at least it has a better chance than playing the lottery. Like Nassim Taleb says, bet on things with a limited downside and unlimited upside. And if you don't try, nothing will happen.

hgsgm 4y ago
2devnull 4y ago
“things with a limited downside and unlimited upside” Penny stocks and junk bonds, a classic recipe for attaining mega wealth.
- eyphka 4y ago
  That is how Warren Buffet got started, or as he called them, used cigarbuts.
  - ffggffggj 4y ago
    It also helped that his father was a congressman and stock trader who brought Buffet around his finance friends throughout his youth and helped him start buying stocks as a young teenager.
- lullab 4y ago
  Theoretically yes. Even putting it all on black in Vegas could work. But it doesn't mean you should do it. Any investment is inherently a gamble, some are riskier than others and some have a too small payoff for the risk.
jrm4 4y ago
I mean, lets get Taleb exactly right here: He basically says don't invest "moderately," -- like putting your large amounts of money in stocks, even index funds, is a bad idea. Invest in both extremes, barbell style. Put MOST of it in something bulletproof (he goes with Treasury Bonds) and then the rest as big bets on long shots.

627467 4y ago

It takes a certain combination of work/knowledge/luck to profit from anything in life. Seems reductionist to equate buying low and selling at peak to buying a lottery ticket. But so it does to claim hard work has been the main reason why financial investors profit

wildrhythms 4y ago
>It takes a certain combination of work/knowledge/luck to profit from anything in life. Plenty of people 'profiting' on the wealth of their parents, grandparents, etc. when they themselves have never worked a day in their life and don't have much knowledge of anything. Inherited wealth is an obvious contradiction to the meritocracy that so many people believe we live within today.
- 627467 4y ago
  If my response seemed to support the idea of meritocracy as a fact it was unintended. Obviously I missed "inheritance" or family-estate from the triad.

kfarr 4y ago

Perfect example of fundamental attribution error

laserlight 4y ago

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1827/ https://xkcd.com/1827/