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Two things: 1) Learn to live with failure. Most of these folks sound pretty privileged, as if they never got smacked in the face with reality or had to deal wi

Two things: 1) Learn to live with failure. Most of these folks sound pretty privileged, as if they never got smacked in the face with reality or had to deal with failure. Sometimes that's what happens when one is a young superstar, the odds were in their favor until it wasn't. The rest of us just learned to deal with disappointment and overcoming. 2) The real secret about success is that it's random. It's not even about luck or hard work, success is simply random. Luck is just a lottery scratcher and hard work lets you get more tickets to scratch but hard work, product fit, traction blah blah don't guarantee success. Because again, success is random. Thinking otherwise will drive you crazy trying to analyze why bad things happen to good people and good things happens to bad people. Determination is the only trait that finds success, because you just keep trying until you die. Which then calls back to my first point: learn to live with failure. It's good for you. Each subsequent time you need to cry less.

kenjackson 11y ago
Learn to live with failure. Most of these folks sound pretty privileged, as if they never got smacked in the face with reality or had to deal with failure. Sometimes that's what happens when one is a young superstar, the odds were in their favor until it wasn't. I disagree. Never learn to live with failure. Failure should be painful, and should be proportional to what you put into trying to succeed. Doing a startup should be toward the top of the list of things you should feel really bad about failing at (after failing as a parent, spouse, child). You should pour everything you have into the startup. If you do anything less then you probably deserve to fail (although you may still succeed). If you can do a startup, fail, and then say, "no biggie, on to the next", then you're probably not someone that I would bet on. That said, after a week of crying (and probably months prior to that of anxiety), you should be able to bounce back. Incorporate all that you learned into your next try.
- alaskamiller 11y ago
  Using pain as a motivation is what a monk does behind closed doors whipping himself to get to god. I offer satisfaction as the better non-masochistic alternative. And in your scenario only a child plays that game. Because they don't know any better and at that stage it's entirely based only randomness. Today's Disney super star is tomorrow's old news. There's also some kind of weird perversion of only wanting to place bets on those so intense that they tilt to suicide from the anxiety and shame. Adults know better and as it turns out after adulting for awhile and living in reality only then does entrepreneurship really take shape.
  - kenjackson 11y ago
    It's not based on randomness. You can't field a random group of 12 men and win the NBA Championship or 53 for the Super Bowl. As composed as Russell Wilson was, he didn't immediately forget about the game. That's the difference between those that make it and those that don't. I'd be curious if there are virtually any successful founders (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Jerry Yang, etc) who would have been completely indifferent if they failed. I suspect that is not highly correlated with those that succeed. And I think Floyd Mayweather would offer that failure is bad for you. You can learn as many lessons from winning/succeeding as losing/failing. Or as an ex-coach used to say, "losing teaches a lot of lessons -- most importantly, that you need to figure out how to win"
    - tjradcliffe 11y ago
      Your model of "randomness" is unrelated to the argument that is being made here. No one--absolutely no one--is saying anything to suggest that a random selection of people could win an NBA championship. They are saying that randomness has an important role to play in the creation of a winning team, along with talent and hard work. Given that the world is full of talented people who are working hard--and it is--the difference between those who make it and those who don't is very often due to luck. Persistence and courage are two things that really do make a difference because they give luck the most time and largest field on which to operate, but nothing can eliminate luck entirely. Almost everyone who succeeds is talented and works hard. That is completely unrelated to the claim that everyone who is talented and works hard succeeds. The belief that winners and losers are separated primarily by talent and effort is not very plausible, given the number of "near misses" in the world: people who make it most of the way to success and get derailed by one bad choice (which was not an obviously bad choice at the time) or some other piece of bad luck.
      - kenjackson 11y ago
        The real secret about success is that it's random. It's not even about luck or hard work, success is simply random. That's the line I was responding to. This seems directly opposed to what you said, "They are saying that randomness has an important role to play in the creation of a winning team, along with talent and hard work." I will grant you that randomness plays a role. But success in NOT "simply random".
- tjradcliffe 11y ago
  The problem with this view is that fear of failure is a strong demotivator for many people. Want to avoid failure? Never do anything interesting. It's a mistake to think that fear of failure is the only or even the best motivator, and I would be extremely leary of betting on anyone who was primarily motivated by fear of failure. I want to back someone who desires success above all else, not who fears failure. They are quite different things.
  - kenjackson 11y ago
    I never said you should be motivated by fear. In fact I'd argue that being motivated to succeed leads to exactly the same thing I describe -- failure being painful. It's not about being motivated by fear. It's about not being indifferent to success or failure. If you show me someone who doesn't care if they succeed or fail, I'll show you someone who probably will fail a million times or more -- then die.
matwood 11y ago
It does require luck, but I don't agree that it is random. A sports analogy make work here. Is it random that the Cavs and Warriors made it to the NBA finals? No! Did they both require some luck to get there? Absolutely!
- alaskamiller 11y ago
  Sure, the two teams played out a tournament to get to the finals. That required lots of skills, talent, hard work. But are you saying that the teams that didn't make it the finals just didn't want it bad enough? Worked hard enough? Were talented enough? Or lucky enough? Maybe you can look at it as it's pretty random how the players on the respective teams ended up there compared to hundreds of thousands of potentials drawn from the NCAA. Because one wrong twist of your ankle, one indulgence of a pizza from a commercial entity, one bad grade, and you could easily be on a different path.
  - matwood 11y ago
    Maybe once you get to the top 4 teams you could argue it's random, but the Knicks for example did not have enough talent this year to even make the playoffs. Random would imply that any team could win, but that's simply not true. The 7 game format also helps to remove luck from the equation. Luck still matters, but getting lucky over and over to win 4/7 games means better talent likely won.
Axsuul 11y ago
It can be. You can be lucky to meet the right co-founders. You can be lucky to have the right idea at the right time. You can be lucky in the sense that working on your current mediocre startup allowed you to luckily come upon a problem or idea that is even bigger. There is and always will be an element of luck to success. What it comes down to though is nurturing an environment where that luck is more likely to happen than not.
crucini 11y ago
> The real secret about success is that it's random Really? Why do corporations pay top dollar for good CEO's? Are they foolish to? Would you claim that hunting and fishing are also pure luck? Doesn't the hunter's skill and knowledge come into play?
someone7x 11y ago
> Luck is just a lottery scratcher and hard work lets you get more tickets to scratch I couldn't agree more and I tell a less elegant version of it to people myself.

kenjackson 11y ago

Learn to live with failure. Most of these folks sound pretty privileged, as if they never got smacked in the face with reality or had to deal with failure. Sometimes that's what happens when one is a young superstar, the odds were in their favor until it wasn't. I disagree. Never learn to live with failure. Failure should be painful, and should be proportional to what you put into trying to succeed. Doing a startup should be toward the top of the list of things you should feel really bad about failing at (after failing as a parent, spouse, child). You should pour everything you have into the startup. If you do anything less then you probably deserve to fail (although you may still succeed). If you can do a startup, fail, and then say, "no biggie, on to the next", then you're probably not someone that I would bet on. That said, after a week of crying (and probably months prior to that of anxiety), you should be able to bounce back. Incorporate all that you learned into your next try.

alaskamiller 11y ago
Using pain as a motivation is what a monk does behind closed doors whipping himself to get to god. I offer satisfaction as the better non-masochistic alternative. And in your scenario only a child plays that game. Because they don't know any better and at that stage it's entirely based only randomness. Today's Disney super star is tomorrow's old news. There's also some kind of weird perversion of only wanting to place bets on those so intense that they tilt to suicide from the anxiety and shame. Adults know better and as it turns out after adulting for awhile and living in reality only then does entrepreneurship really take shape.
- kenjackson 11y ago
  It's not based on randomness. You can't field a random group of 12 men and win the NBA Championship or 53 for the Super Bowl. As composed as Russell Wilson was, he didn't immediately forget about the game. That's the difference between those that make it and those that don't. I'd be curious if there are virtually any successful founders (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Jerry Yang, etc) who would have been completely indifferent if they failed. I suspect that is not highly correlated with those that succeed. And I think Floyd Mayweather would offer that failure is bad for you. You can learn as many lessons from winning/succeeding as losing/failing. Or as an ex-coach used to say, "losing teaches a lot of lessons -- most importantly, that you need to figure out how to win"
  - tjradcliffe 11y ago
    Your model of "randomness" is unrelated to the argument that is being made here. No one--absolutely no one--is saying anything to suggest that a random selection of people could win an NBA championship. They are saying that randomness has an important role to play in the creation of a winning team, along with talent and hard work. Given that the world is full of talented people who are working hard--and it is--the difference between those who make it and those who don't is very often due to luck. Persistence and courage are two things that really do make a difference because they give luck the most time and largest field on which to operate, but nothing can eliminate luck entirely. Almost everyone who succeeds is talented and works hard. That is completely unrelated to the claim that everyone who is talented and works hard succeeds. The belief that winners and losers are separated primarily by talent and effort is not very plausible, given the number of "near misses" in the world: people who make it most of the way to success and get derailed by one bad choice (which was not an obviously bad choice at the time) or some other piece of bad luck.
    - kenjackson 11y ago
      The real secret about success is that it's random. It's not even about luck or hard work, success is simply random. That's the line I was responding to. This seems directly opposed to what you said, "They are saying that randomness has an important role to play in the creation of a winning team, along with talent and hard work." I will grant you that randomness plays a role. But success in NOT "simply random".
tjradcliffe 11y ago
The problem with this view is that fear of failure is a strong demotivator for many people. Want to avoid failure? Never do anything interesting. It's a mistake to think that fear of failure is the only or even the best motivator, and I would be extremely leary of betting on anyone who was primarily motivated by fear of failure. I want to back someone who desires success above all else, not who fears failure. They are quite different things.
- kenjackson 11y ago
  I never said you should be motivated by fear. In fact I'd argue that being motivated to succeed leads to exactly the same thing I describe -- failure being painful. It's not about being motivated by fear. It's about not being indifferent to success or failure. If you show me someone who doesn't care if they succeed or fail, I'll show you someone who probably will fail a million times or more -- then die.

matwood 11y ago

It does require luck, but I don't agree that it is random. A sports analogy make work here. Is it random that the Cavs and Warriors made it to the NBA finals? No! Did they both require some luck to get there? Absolutely!

alaskamiller 11y ago
Sure, the two teams played out a tournament to get to the finals. That required lots of skills, talent, hard work. But are you saying that the teams that didn't make it the finals just didn't want it bad enough? Worked hard enough? Were talented enough? Or lucky enough? Maybe you can look at it as it's pretty random how the players on the respective teams ended up there compared to hundreds of thousands of potentials drawn from the NCAA. Because one wrong twist of your ankle, one indulgence of a pizza from a commercial entity, one bad grade, and you could easily be on a different path.
- matwood 11y ago
  Maybe once you get to the top 4 teams you could argue it's random, but the Knicks for example did not have enough talent this year to even make the playoffs. Random would imply that any team could win, but that's simply not true. The 7 game format also helps to remove luck from the equation. Luck still matters, but getting lucky over and over to win 4/7 games means better talent likely won.

Axsuul 11y ago

It can be. You can be lucky to meet the right co-founders. You can be lucky to have the right idea at the right time. You can be lucky in the sense that working on your current mediocre startup allowed you to luckily come upon a problem or idea that is even bigger. There is and always will be an element of luck to success. What it comes down to though is nurturing an environment where that luck is more likely to happen than not.

crucini 11y ago

> The real secret about success is that it's random Really? Why do corporations pay top dollar for good CEO's? Are they foolish to? Would you claim that hunting and fishing are also pure luck? Doesn't the hunter's skill and knowledge come into play?

someone7x 11y ago

> Luck is just a lottery scratcher and hard work lets you get more tickets to scratch I couldn't agree more and I tell a less elegant version of it to people myself.