4 ms·

Calling Steve Jobs ‘Lucky’ Would Be A Sin

9 points by npguy 14y ago

lutze 14y ago
I've heard Jobs called a lot of things over the years (mostly the C word, if we're honest), but lucky? As in "merely" lucky? Nah. The guy had a head on his shoulders, you've got to give him that.
jacques_chester 14y ago
Steve Jobs was born in the USA. Massive edge right there. Lived in California during the dawn of the personal computing age. Met Woz. These 3 coincidences put him ahead of billions of other people. And they are coincidences. They're luck. Luck matters; we just don't like to admit it -- http://chester.id.au/2012/03/02/does-leadership-matter/ http://chester.id.au/2012/03/02/does-leadership-matter/
- npguy 14y ago
  Luck matters. But it is not the only thing that matters.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    This is the distinction between necessary and sufficient causes. Luck is still necessary, just as genius was necessary, a certain course of action was necessary etc.
- ziffusion 14y ago
  Good lord. There's gotta be some logical fallacy named after this. Yes, all these things happened by some fortunate cosmic happenstance. But that is true for everything. Take away a few key pieces from a flow in history, and the flow might not have taken place at all. The point is that, statistically, such fortunate confluences happen all the time. Only a few produce a flow that blazes a trail. And it does have a lot to do with the characteristics of the people who find themselves at the cusp of it. Could someone else have been as successful as Steve had these early things happened to them? Maybe, maybe not. Could someone else have been as successful as Steve had some other set of fortunate events come together? Maybe, maybe not. It is silly to take away from a person, and attribute it all to luck.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    > It is silly to take away from a person, and attribute it all to luck. And where, exactly, did I do that?
ksec 14y ago
You can win three times Lottery Jackpot and you still wouldn't create a damn thing that is anywhere near Apple's Product. Not that they are insanely great, but no one would put label them as cheap, crap or mindlessly crafted. And you can met Woz, but you would still have failed creating a company. And properly failed miserably. Steve Lived at the dawn of the personal computing age, and got kicked butt by IBM, M$ and Intel. Wow. Lucky He got kicked out of his own founding company. Extremely Lucky. There are properly some luck involved in every successful billionaires, Bill Gate for exmaple. But Steve, I would put him as the last one on the list. So Yes. It is a Sin.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  I believe that being born in the USA, being in California and meeting Woz were all necessary causes. Without them Steve Jobs might have run an insanely great yoga studio. So yeah. Luck.
olgeni 14y ago
These kind of debates are so boring they actually make you appreciate reading VB code.
- general_failure 14y ago
  Surely, you meant J2EE?
  - olgeni 14y ago
    Nope, nobody deserves that much.
tthomas48 14y ago
Don't mess with the narrative. If hard work isn't the only thing that contributes to success you're going to destroy a lot of people's entire world view. But yes he was lucky. Just like the fact I'm a programmer right now has a lot to do with being lucky that my accountant father brought home an IBM PC from work in 1980. The choice to actually spend time learning how the computer worked, while an important choice, was secondary to the luck in being one of a fairly small number of people with a personal computer in 1980.

9 points by npguy 14y ago

lutze 14y ago

I've heard Jobs called a lot of things over the years (mostly the C word, if we're honest), but lucky? As in "merely" lucky? Nah. The guy had a head on his shoulders, you've got to give him that.

jacques_chester 14y ago

Steve Jobs was born in the USA. Massive edge right there. Lived in California during the dawn of the personal computing age. Met Woz. These 3 coincidences put him ahead of billions of other people. And they are coincidences. They're luck. Luck matters; we just don't like to admit it -- http://chester.id.au/2012/03/02/does-leadership-matter/ http://chester.id.au/2012/03/02/does-leadership-matter/

npguy 14y ago
Luck matters. But it is not the only thing that matters.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  This is the distinction between necessary and sufficient causes. Luck is still necessary, just as genius was necessary, a certain course of action was necessary etc.
ziffusion 14y ago
Good lord. There's gotta be some logical fallacy named after this. Yes, all these things happened by some fortunate cosmic happenstance. But that is true for everything. Take away a few key pieces from a flow in history, and the flow might not have taken place at all. The point is that, statistically, such fortunate confluences happen all the time. Only a few produce a flow that blazes a trail. And it does have a lot to do with the characteristics of the people who find themselves at the cusp of it. Could someone else have been as successful as Steve had these early things happened to them? Maybe, maybe not. Could someone else have been as successful as Steve had some other set of fortunate events come together? Maybe, maybe not. It is silly to take away from a person, and attribute it all to luck.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  > It is silly to take away from a person, and attribute it all to luck. And where, exactly, did I do that?

ksec 14y ago

You can win three times Lottery Jackpot and you still wouldn't create a damn thing that is anywhere near Apple's Product. Not that they are insanely great, but no one would put label them as cheap, crap or mindlessly crafted. And you can met Woz, but you would still have failed creating a company. And properly failed miserably. Steve Lived at the dawn of the personal computing age, and got kicked butt by IBM, M$ and Intel. Wow. Lucky He got kicked out of his own founding company. Extremely Lucky. There are properly some luck involved in every successful billionaires, Bill Gate for exmaple. But Steve, I would put him as the last one on the list. So Yes. It is a Sin.

jacques_chester 14y ago
I believe that being born in the USA, being in California and meeting Woz were all necessary causes. Without them Steve Jobs might have run an insanely great yoga studio. So yeah. Luck.

olgeni 14y ago

These kind of debates are so boring they actually make you appreciate reading VB code.

general_failure 14y ago
Surely, you meant J2EE?
- olgeni 14y ago
  Nope, nobody deserves that much.

tthomas48 14y ago

Don't mess with the narrative. If hard work isn't the only thing that contributes to success you're going to destroy a lot of people's entire world view. But yes he was lucky. Just like the fact I'm a programmer right now has a lot to do with being lucky that my accountant father brought home an IBM PC from work in 1980. The choice to actually spend time learning how the computer worked, while an important choice, was secondary to the luck in being one of a fairly small number of people with a personal computer in 1980.