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> There are many, many situations in life where you can do everything right and still not win Yet the only way to give yourself a chance to win is to take part

by zpeti 3y ago

> There are many, many situations in life where you can do everything right and still not win Yet the only way to give yourself a chance to win is to take part. If you sit at home and feel resentful, you definitely won’t build a billion dollar company, or win the lottery for that matter. The other issue is, the people who actually DO succeed work extremely hard to do so. They are lucky, yes, because it worked, and there are 10 others who didn’t succeed, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard to get there. Just like there are 100 losers in an Olympic sport for every gold medal winner, the other 99 worked incredibly hard too. A point many on HN seem to miss, and attribute all business success to “luck”

atoav 3y ago
> Yet the only way to give yourself a chance to win is to take part. If you sit at home and feel resentful, you definitely won’t build a billion dollar company, or win the lottery for that matter. I didn't say this as an excuse to not try, quite the opposite. If you are aware of the fact that not every failure is your fault, you can try (and fail) with less pressure. > The other issue is, the people who actually DO succeed work extremely hard to do so. Some of them, yes, others no. You can work hard your whole life and still never have success by your own metrics. I think one has to be careful to not drink the workaholic kool-aid a tad bit too much. A lot of the good stuff can come from low pressure activities like toying around, trying things out etc. If people are to work focused they will never horse around and never harvest the creative fruit of doing so. I would be careful to compare success (which for most seems to equate economic success) with sports. Although sports are not as simple as one might think, they are nowhere near the complexity of a market based economy within a modern information based society. Again, these are not excuses. It just seems sad to me, that many people (especially in the US) have the whole "just work hard enough and it will pay off" mentality engrained so hard in their mind, they will inevitably hit a burn out. And even if they manage to "win" and get the economic success they longed for so much, they will not become happy all of the sudden when it is there. Don't get me wrong, economic stability is certainly necessary to lead a happy life, but there are many other factors that have nothing to do with the money and all to do with how you want to spend your time.
jacknews 3y ago
I'd work my butt off too if I was effectively earning $10k or $100k/hour or whatever. But plenty of the 'owner' class don't, even then, unless working on your golf swing counts as work.
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  At that point though, the highest impact things you can do are sometimes nothing. Strategy, as in actually choosing what to do, and then holding people accountable, is the hard part.
ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
I think outliers like Bezos, gates level success has a huge part which is luck but apart from that I think most people can have a successful business which will make them a multimillionaire if they get their tactics right and work diligently.
layer8 3y ago
Mere luck is not sufficient, but one could argue that it is necessary. Among those who work hard, those who additionally have luck will be more successful than the others.

by zpeti 3y ago

atoav 3y ago

> Yet the only way to give yourself a chance to win is to take part. If you sit at home and feel resentful, you definitely won’t build a billion dollar company, or win the lottery for that matter. I didn't say this as an excuse to not try, quite the opposite. If you are aware of the fact that not every failure is your fault, you can try (and fail) with less pressure. > The other issue is, the people who actually DO succeed work extremely hard to do so. Some of them, yes, others no. You can work hard your whole life and still never have success by your own metrics. I think one has to be careful to not drink the workaholic kool-aid a tad bit too much. A lot of the good stuff can come from low pressure activities like toying around, trying things out etc. If people are to work focused they will never horse around and never harvest the creative fruit of doing so. I would be careful to compare success (which for most seems to equate economic success) with sports. Although sports are not as simple as one might think, they are nowhere near the complexity of a market based economy within a modern information based society. Again, these are not excuses. It just seems sad to me, that many people (especially in the US) have the whole "just work hard enough and it will pay off" mentality engrained so hard in their mind, they will inevitably hit a burn out. And even if they manage to "win" and get the economic success they longed for so much, they will not become happy all of the sudden when it is there. Don't get me wrong, economic stability is certainly necessary to lead a happy life, but there are many other factors that have nothing to do with the money and all to do with how you want to spend your time.

jacknews 3y ago

I'd work my butt off too if I was effectively earning $10k or $100k/hour or whatever. But plenty of the 'owner' class don't, even then, unless working on your golf swing counts as work.

datadrivenangel 3y ago
At that point though, the highest impact things you can do are sometimes nothing. Strategy, as in actually choosing what to do, and then holding people accountable, is the hard part.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

I think outliers like Bezos, gates level success has a huge part which is luck but apart from that I think most people can have a successful business which will make them a multimillionaire if they get their tactics right and work diligently.

layer8 3y ago

Mere luck is not sufficient, but one could argue that it is necessary. Among those who work hard, those who additionally have luck will be more successful than the others.