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Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are. He was lucky though. Broadcast.com was the most bogus of all Bubble acquisitions. Cuban got the highest payoff
by jcwentz 19y ago
Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.
He was lucky though. Broadcast.com was the most bogus of all Bubble acquisitions. Cuban got the highest payoff per dollar of value created in the history of start-ups.
The fact that he worked hard for 20 years before that doesn't mean he didn't get lucky. Randomness strikes everyone equally.
- johnrob 19y agoStill, I think the point is that you only have to get lucky once. Sure, his last company was lucky. But if you start 10 companies, how lucky is it that one succeeds? Much less so than if you only started 1.
- cellis 19y agomy definition of luck is at the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Therefore, a better thing to say is "He was prepared". He had actually put himself in a position, through starting MicroWhatever to reap more through Broadcast.
- samson 19y agoI think its an insult to successful people, when others go around branding their achievements as "luck". The fact that we were born in North America and not into a war torn anarchy based country like Somalia, we should all consider ourselves lucky. From that point on what you choose to do with your time and the results of that time spent ain't got nothin to do with luck.
- davidw 19y agoYou should give The Black Swan a read sometime. Lots of people are smart, well prepared, work hard, but few get the phenomenal returns that Mr. Cuban has. That's luck.
- davidw 19y agoOne example is doctors: they are people who work hard to achieve, do an important job, and certainly earn well, but they don't seem to get these stratospheric startup paybacks, just a good, steady high return on their investment in learning and practice.
- samson 19y agoTo me "luck" is like the word "love", the moment you start using it to describe things, you stop thinking about it. Perhaps in the case of love thats a good thing, but when trying to be succesful at something, going around calling things luck instead of trying to find the source does not do you any good.
- tocomment 19y agoI don't think broadcast.com even exists anymore. Yahoo spent almost 6 billion dollars for a company/website that doesn't exist less than 10 years later (if I remember my facts right). So I'm sure not everyone agrees with his definition of "right".