Exactly. Luck is necessary, but not sufficient, for massive success. But on a deeper level, the big problem with the "luck vs. talent" debate is that we have d

Exactly. Luck is necessary, but not sufficient, for massive success. But on a deeper level, the big problem with the "luck vs. talent" debate is that we have done a pretty decent job quantizing talent -- but we haven't done so with luck. We treat "luck" as this singular, mystical force. In truth, luck is reducible to further components, just as talent is reducible to constituents like intelligence, practice, ambition, curiosity, etc. There are different types of luck. There's luck on a macroscopic scale, such as being born into a stable family with access to necessary resources. There's luck on a microscopic scale, such as the circumstances surrounding each encounter over the course of one's day (e.g., who happens to be in line with you at Starbucks, or who's sitting next to you on a plane). And then there's the crucial component of how you expose and act on the luck. (You may never realize that your seatmate is the CEO of a hot startup unless you manage to strike up an amiable conversation; in this case, you need to expose and "uncover" the luck around you in order to take advantage of it). Truly dumb luck -- like discovering you're the long lost heir to a megafortune, or winning the lottery, or being discovered at a restaurant by a talent agent -- is fairly rare, and at any rate, one can't count on it. Given all of the above, what makes for an ideal luck strategy? Go through life assuming you're lucky, but that your luck is hidden from plain sight. It needs to be uncovered.