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Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

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Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#51

Post by cousin_it »

raintrees wrote: post #10
d4ft wrote: post #2

Good content, but my favorite part of the article is the anecdote about how Paul started at Google. Putting yourself in a place where you have the opportunity to be lucky makes up some percentage of the total likelihood of being extremely successful (yes, I consider Paul extremely successful along many axes), but I think a much larger portion of this equation is actually being lucky. I guess if you iterate over and o…

"Chance favors the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur

"Random selection is biased in favour of lucky people." - Roy A. Sorensen

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#52

Post by run4yourlives »

joshstrike wrote: post #13

Meh. Lucky people always love to talk about how easy it is if you just do what they did - though they usually have a hard time explaining exactly what it was that they did. How does he explain all the happy-go-lucky young fliberdygibbits who ended up serendipitously taking their first job offer in 1998 from Pets.com? Or those of us who labored under the impression that "as soon as DataPower takes off" there'll be bon…

That's nothing more than ego-fear in the extreme - after all, you don't have to step out of your comfort zone, success is just luck.

This, of course, isn't true at all.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#53

Post by sagarun »

Reminds me of my recent interview experience with a big internet company. I was casually signing up for this Linux user group. To join that group you have introduce yourself, i just gave the link explaining how i contribute to this operating system project. One night i was pinged by a strange guy, he just showed me a job posting on their website and asked me whether i would like to join. The job description is exactly what i do in free time. It was really amazing. Everything was just an accident, no plan at all. I sent them my resume, after couple of phone interviews , they gave me a flight ticket (yay! that was my first flight) . Did the interview OKAY. I am keeping my fingers crossed for result of the interview. Even if i don't get the job, it was a wonderful experience :-)

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#54

Post by GFischer »

rick888 wrote: post #28
dirtyaura wrote: post #20

My philosophy on planning your own life: You should think enough (and just enough, no more) about what you want in life so that when unusual opportunities arrive, you notice them, and jump at them.

"You should think enough (and just enough, no more) about what you want in life so that when unusual opportunities arrive, you notice them, and jump at them." This is more or less my take on it. There are opportunities all around us (IE: the luck part of the equation). But, if you don't have the knowledge, expertise, or ambition to act on them, you won't be able to take advantage of it (the skill part of the equation…

Lucky people notice more opportunities and take advantage of them, according to this article by Richard Wiseman:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-a...

Key points from the article

"unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else"

"lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good."

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#55

Post by rick888 »

GFischer wrote: post #54
rick888 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You should think enough (and just enough, no more) about what you want in life so that when unusual opportunities arrive, you notice them, and jump at them." This is more or less my take on it. There are opportunities all around us (IE: the luck part of the equation). But, if you don't have the knowledge, expertise, or ambition to act on them, you won't be able to take advantage of it (the skill part of the equation…

Lucky people notice more opportunities and take advantage of them, according to this article by Richard Wiseman: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-a... Key points from the article "unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else" "lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance o…

"lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good."

It sounds less like luck and more like skill when it's put this way.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#56

Post by kadavy »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #3

A closely related story, from HN user kenjackson ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647146 ): "How long will you need to find your truest, most productive niche? This I cannot predict, for, sadly, access to a podium confers no gift of prophecy. But I can say that however long it takes, it will be time well spent. I am reminded of a friend from the early 1970s, Edward Witten. I liked Ed, but felt sorry for him, to…

Great story. Another reminder that you can't connect the dots looking forward: http://onemansblog.com/2010/02/01/steve-jobs-outstanding-sta...

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#57

Post by volodia »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #3

A closely related story, from HN user kenjackson ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647146 ): "How long will you need to find your truest, most productive niche? This I cannot predict, for, sadly, access to a podium confers no gift of prophecy. But I can say that however long it takes, it will be time well spent. I am reminded of a friend from the early 1970s, Edward Witten. I liked Ed, but felt sorry for him, to…

He must have been already recognized as being very talented in mathematics to get accepted into the Ph.D. program at Princeton. They only accept around 15 students every year from all over the world. I wonder how did his talent demonstrate itself before he started doing mathematics professionally.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#58

Post by smg »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #3

A closely related story, from HN user kenjackson ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647146 ): "How long will you need to find your truest, most productive niche? This I cannot predict, for, sadly, access to a podium confers no gift of prophecy. But I can say that however long it takes, it will be time well spent. I am reminded of a friend from the early 1970s, Edward Witten. I liked Ed, but felt sorry for him, to…

Does any one have access to the original New York Times Ed Witten article?

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#59

Post by smg »

smg wrote: post #58
michael_nielsen wrote: post #3

A closely related story, from HN user kenjackson ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647146 ): "How long will you need to find your truest, most productive niche? This I cannot predict, for, sadly, access to a podium confers no gift of prophecy. But I can say that however long it takes, it will be time well spent. I am reminded of a friend from the early 1970s, Edward Witten. I liked Ed, but felt sorry for him, to…

Does any one have access to the original New York Times Ed Witten article?

The original Ed Witten New York Times article referred to by Weisbort is here http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/18/magazine/a-theory-of-every...
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