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 import

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...