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And yet it's still not a good measure. Most businesses succeed on luck and connections. A person's worth is contingent on neither.
by tester457 4y ago
And yet it's still not a good measure. Most businesses succeed on luck and connections. A person's worth is contingent on neither.
- WalterBright 4y agoSuccessful businessmen make their own luck.
- incone123 4y agoI read this as a euphemism for corruption.
- WalterBright 4y agoIf you've convinced yourself you cannot succeed, you won't.
- tuyiown 4y agoYour fairy tales ignores all the people that tried correctly to build the their luck and yet ended in a worse situation by pursuing success based on incorrect world view. This is irresponsible.
- jasonkester 4y agoI’ve watched this argument play out many times here, and I can see you’re dedicated to winning it. Have a quick think about what will gain by successfully convincing the person trying to help you that success is impossible. Personally I’m really happy that I gave up making excuses and actually tried to improve my situation. Despite all your persuasive arguments and conviction that it’s all a pretty fantasy, it did in fact work. Here’s hoping we get to see you arguing the other side one day.
- jpmoral 4y agoTheir point isn't that success is impossible. It's that "If you work hard you will succeed." is a fairy tale and that it's irresponsible to assert otherwise.
- WalterBright 4y agoI never once wrote "if you work hard you will succeed".
- jpmoral 4y agoThat's something for the other poster then. It seems you both are talking past each other. I'm not trying to support one argument or the other, just clarifying to improve the discussion.
- Dudeman112 4y agoWhat do you think was the probability of success before you set out to do it? These kind of arguments would greatly benefit from people just saying what they think the actual number is Being able to disregard everyone who thinks it's 1 or 0 is quite handy
- jasonkester 4y agoI’m at 2 for about 15 now, in terms of profitable SaaS businesses to good, several month attempts. It took maybe six or eight tries to get the first one going, so I’d say I’m getting better with practice.
- tuyiown 4y agoI don't state that success is impossible. I just don't care, my only argument is to entice people act on well informed situation, properly evaluate their luck or chances of improving it. This is the real and _only_ way to improve their chance of success, just telling that «you have to create your luck» or other non-sense, is just dangerous advice that exists only based on survivor bias and does nothing but improving the risk of destroying lives.
- sokoloff 4y ago“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” - Henry Ford https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/978-whether-you-think-you-can-or-you-think-you-can-t--you-re https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/978-whether-you-think-you-c...
- seventytwo 4y agoYou must be young…
- billyjobob 4y agoDepends how you define young. He has a few years left I would hope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright
- WalterBright 4y agoI'm not dead yet. In fact, I'm feeling much better!
- WalterBright 4y agoI wish. But my attitudes have been formed by my life experience, that of my friends and acquaintances, and my reading of history books. A common thread is if you believe you cannot succeed, you won't. If you blame your failures on others, fate, etc., you will not succeed. If you find yourself saying "it's not my fault" a lot, your life isn't going to go well. On the other hand, if you accept full responsibility for your failures, and do your best to learn from them, and are willing to try again, then success becomes probable. I know these views are very much out of fashion today. But they still will work for you, if you choose to implement them.
- bongoman37 4y ago[dead]
- speakfreely 4y agoI prefer to phrase it as "they do things to increase the probability of luck finding them".
- ReflectedImage 4y agoThey just put a lot of coins in the slot machine, it's nothing special, you just keep trying until something takes off. Of course, you will need to be rich to begin with to fund all these attempts.
- speakfreely 4y agoYou don't need to be rich for that. Even if you're struggling financially, going out to tech events where you could meet potential partners vs. sitting at home with your head down could be the difference between "getting lucky" and spending the rest of your life in a W2 situation. Business is about connections and rich people get a great head start on the rest of us, but the average person does a lot of self-sabotage, as well.
- ReflectedImage 4y ago"Business is about connections and rich people" Forget that nonsense, it's about starting with a large pool of money with which to bet.
- WalterBright 4y agoThere are plenty of books available on starting a business with next to no capital.
- ReflectedImage 4y agoThat's why the Silcon Valley Angel Investers give out books instead of funding rounds.
- danjac 4y agoOr they are lucky to be born into a wealthy family with connections and safety net (Musk, Gates etc)
- ReflectedImage 4y ago> Successful businessmen make their own luck. Let me shoot that statement down in flames for you! Successful businessmen have a lot of initial funds to pursue a lot of different ventures of which perhaps 1 will be a success. If you ever talked to the successful businessman types you will find they have lots of companies but only 1 will be the source of their money. The rest either lose money or break even.
- lupire 4y agoGoogle the name of the person you are replying to.
- parthianshotgun 4y agoAppealing to authority?
- ReflectedImage 4y agoI'm just telling you the pure mathematical truth of the situation. According to the maths, given people of identical skill and the same starting funds. Some small percentage of people will get lucky and accelerate out into riches whilst the rest will drop into poverty. The people who accelerated into riches can't tell you why they accelerated out into riches, since it was purely luck based to begin with. The more funds you acquire, the more risks you can take, the more money you can make. Taking risks doesn't make you rich, becoming rich makes you take risks. It's that way around.
- pclmulqdq 4y agoI think it's probably better said that they "prepare to capitalize on luck." Most people don't do that, because it is fairly costly to do, but it pays off when you eventually get lucky.
- WalterBright 4y agoMy dad always told me that people don't recognize opportunity when it presents itself because it comes disguised as work.
- csomar 4y agoIf you were lucky to make your fortunes, of course, you’d feel more comfortable if you think that _you_ did and not a roll of a dice. I did well for myself comparing to what I came from. I could probably do better. But at some point, I laid out how it all played out. The kicks that made me serious money were simply luck. By working and exposing yourself, you increase your luck surface. But that doesn’t change the fact: It’s luck. Now, if we are in a hot field like Tech, many more people are going to make it. That’s not because Tech people are amazing, but it’s because Tech is booming. Luck here starts to make sense only at the extremes (ie: becoming a Zuckerburg) but at a local area, because luck is abundant, your hard work matters more. We are all lucky (Tech people) to be in this very particular time.
- WalterBright 4y agoIf you had done nothing, luck wouldn't have found you.
- Gibbon1 4y agoObservation about work groups. The groups profit is often being created by the couple of workers who are underpaid.
- austhrow743 4y agoLuck maybe not but your connections are definitely a huge part of your worth.
- WalterBright 4y agoTrue. Go out and make connections.
- eulers_secret 4y agoYeah, but one can have many fulfilling connections with people who are no help to your business. Yes, connections are a part of “worth”, but the money you can make off them (or through them) is not necessarily.
- p0nce 4y agoNo they rely on a product that has market-fit.