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Thank you for your comment. These are all great points. I absolutely appreciate #1. #2 is a bit harder to accept as it implies I don't have agency. I always had

Thank you for your comment. These are all great points. I absolutely appreciate #1. #2 is a bit harder to accept as it implies I don't have agency. I always had the dogma that my hard work would make a difference from the perspective of financial success. And it has made a difference no doubt. The thing that has preoccupied my thinking is the magnitude. We're talking 100 to 1 when it comes to the impact of luck vs. hard work. This is a bit unsettling for me. Cest la vie I guess.

hnfong 3y ago
> #2 is a bit harder to accept as it implies I don't have agency. Of course you do have agency to a certain extent, the important thing to recognize is that "hard work" leads to mostly linear gains, while to be "successful" (in the "getting $62M in stock options" sense) obviously requires some exponential windfall. The idea that hard work is the only factor for financial success is a blatant lie, perpetuated by those wishing to justify the almost-Ponzi nature of modern economies. Ever wondered why GDP growth is in terms of percentage, while compensation for labor is linear to the effort/work put in?