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Sometimes a person is in the right place at the right time and has an opportunity to become rich. It's important to resist the human urge to account success as

Sometimes a person is in the right place at the right time and has an opportunity to become rich. It's important to resist the human urge to account success as a product of one's own intelligence.

giantrobot 2y ago
I've yet to see any SV billionaires admit any of their success involves luck. They seem incapable of recognizing that being in the right time and place is a huge component of any sort of success. Their egos are so wrapped up in their fortunes that their success must be their omniscience and not the fact they won the tech stock lottery.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- m3m3tic 2y ago
  There's luck involved, but if you listen or read some of Marc Andreesen's ideas there's no doubt he's highly intelligent and thoughtful. Ben Horowitz even said he was the smartest person he'd ever met in his book. While he was obviously working on the right thing at the right time, his fortune is not what I would consider blind luck.
  - xref 2y ago
    Ben Horowitz co-founded Andreesen Horowitz so you know, take whatever he says about his partner with a grain of salt
- wdr1 2y ago
  > I've yet to see any SV billionaires admit any of their success involves luck. Are you even trying, or just being glib for karma? "You have to get lucky in today’s society in order for that to happen" -- Mark Zuckerberg https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/billionaire-mark-zuckerberg-success-like-mine-only-happens-with-luck.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/billionaire-mark-zuckerberg-... "... it's both massively luck and massively hard work. Sometimes it's more luck than hard work, and sometimes it's more hard work than luck. But every success requires both." -- Reid Hoffman https://www.businessinsider.in/linkedin-founder-reid-hoffman-says-success-is-both-luck-and-hard-work/articleshow/61746394.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/linkedin-founder-reid-hoffman... "I'm a lucky guy. I mean, I certainly had a lot of near misses, but I was very lucky in terms of actually achieving success." -- Elon Musk, CNBC, May 2017
sershe 2y ago
I always took the opposite insight from this. It's easy to find some bit of luck in anyone's trajectory and attribute their position to it. However, it's important to remember that for most, there were millions (or at least thousands) of people with the same economic resources, in the same place at the same time, and they haven't achieved the same position. So it's far more important (and useful) to look at individual actions. It's interesting that in a way these are meta with some of the Andreessen's (or Thiel's, he had a whole essay about this) beliefs. Mine is a belief in the power of agency. The above, I view as "excusitis". It's always possible to find an excuse...

Sometimes a person is in the right place at the right time and has an opportunity to become rich. It's important to resist the human urge to account success as a product of one's own intelligence.

giantrobot 2y ago

I've yet to see any SV billionaires admit any of their success involves luck. They seem incapable of recognizing that being in the right time and place is a huge component of any sort of success. Their egos are so wrapped up in their fortunes that their success must be their omniscience and not the fact they won the tech stock lottery.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
m3m3tic 2y ago
There's luck involved, but if you listen or read some of Marc Andreesen's ideas there's no doubt he's highly intelligent and thoughtful. Ben Horowitz even said he was the smartest person he'd ever met in his book. While he was obviously working on the right thing at the right time, his fortune is not what I would consider blind luck.
- xref 2y ago
  Ben Horowitz co-founded Andreesen Horowitz so you know, take whatever he says about his partner with a grain of salt
wdr1 2y ago
> I've yet to see any SV billionaires admit any of their success involves luck. Are you even trying, or just being glib for karma? "You have to get lucky in today’s society in order for that to happen" -- Mark Zuckerberg https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/billionaire-mark-zuckerberg-success-like-mine-only-happens-with-luck.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/billionaire-mark-zuckerberg-... "... it's both massively luck and massively hard work. Sometimes it's more luck than hard work, and sometimes it's more hard work than luck. But every success requires both." -- Reid Hoffman https://www.businessinsider.in/linkedin-founder-reid-hoffman-says-success-is-both-luck-and-hard-work/articleshow/61746394.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/linkedin-founder-reid-hoffman... "I'm a lucky guy. I mean, I certainly had a lot of near misses, but I was very lucky in terms of actually achieving success." -- Elon Musk, CNBC, May 2017

sershe 2y ago

I always took the opposite insight from this. It's easy to find some bit of luck in anyone's trajectory and attribute their position to it. However, it's important to remember that for most, there were millions (or at least thousands) of people with the same economic resources, in the same place at the same time, and they haven't achieved the same position. So it's far more important (and useful) to look at individual actions. It's interesting that in a way these are meta with some of the Andreessen's (or Thiel's, he had a whole essay about this) beliefs. Mine is a belief in the power of agency. The above, I view as "excusitis". It's always possible to find an excuse...