The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms • Hacker News Board

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#51

Post by umvi » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

Years ago, a friend of the family said "You're so smart. Everyone thought you would be a millionaire by age thirty. What happened?" I pointed at my kids and said "They happened. And they take all my time." I was a full-time wife and mom. This is not a career known to lead to great wealth. So, for starters, not all interests or career paths have equal potential to lead to wealth. Intelligence in no way guarantees that…

Next time just say: "I am a millionaire, and more. My kids are worth more than I could have imagined"

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#52

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

ta1234567890 wrote: post #13

martinni wrote: post #7

Rich people got "lucky" but they don't define what luck is to begin with. To quote Naval, there are 4 kinds of luck. 1. Blind luck - Where I just got lucky because something completely out of my control happened 2. Luck from hustling - luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. Which is when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, you’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lo…

However, 2, 3 and 4 can be reduced to 1. You don't choose your genes or where you are born. Those factors, which are blind luck, determine all of the other lucks for your whole life. In the end, everything is just blind luck, but our egos want to feel like they are in control somehow.

Seems like this is a free will argument. In a reductionist view, yes, everything is all blind luck because the universe was set in motion at the Big Bang and has evolved according to the laws of physics since. If you got rich through intelligence, determination, and good choices, that was still luck because your intelligence and determination are largely determined by your genes and your choices by your environment, both of which were determined before you were born.

This argument may be true but it isn't very useful, because the concept of "useful" itself implies free will and active decision-making. In other words, yes, maybe it was all predetermined before we were born, but if you're the sort of person that believes in free will, that decision was predetermined before you were born, so why challenge that belief? And the reason we evolved to believe in the fiction of free will is because humans who did do better than those who don't, so whether it's correlation or causation, it's still adaptive.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#53

Post by fredley » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

martinni wrote: post #7

Rich people got "lucky" but they don't define what luck is to begin with. To quote Naval, there are 4 kinds of luck. 1. Blind luck - Where I just got lucky because something completely out of my control happened 2. Luck from hustling - luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. Which is when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, you’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lo…

You can't frame things like this without talking about misfortune in the same terms. Lots of things can happen that are 'unluckly', but are vastly skewed to certain demographics. Being unlucky like:

* Receiving little or no schooling

* Having to labour as a child

* Being abused

* Having your primary carers be addicts of some kind

* Growing up in a relatively poor/deprived

* ...

Really this list is endless, and other than blind luck (a lotto win, something that can really elevate you out of this situation, as well as having the sense to use the opportunity correctly), no amount of 'hustle' is really going to get you out of this situation.

The kind of attitude in parent's comment is prevalent amongst people who have grown up in relatively rich, successful environments, and see vastly more lucky people than unlucky people (when in reality there are orders of magnitude more unlucky people than lucky).

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#54

Post by Gpetrium » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

ta1234567890 wrote: post #13

martinni wrote: post #7

Rich people got "lucky" but they don't define what luck is to begin with. To quote Naval, there are 4 kinds of luck. 1. Blind luck - Where I just got lucky because something completely out of my control happened 2. Luck from hustling - luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. Which is when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, you’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lo…

However, 2, 3 and 4 can be reduced to 1. You don't choose your genes or where you are born. Those factors, which are blind luck, determine all of the other lucks for your whole life. In the end, everything is just blind luck, but our egos want to feel like they are in control somehow.

Life, in most cases, is built upon all 4 points listed by OP with a varying degree of applicability. If magically, everyone decided to just accept 1 without doing any of the others, you would likely find society going down the drain or the few who attempt 2,3 or 4 with an exceptional return of investment.

I find it difficult to undermine all four 'kinds of luck' when you look at someone studying hard to get into a certain university, or you look at a foreigner deciding to uproot their lives to hopefully get a better life in US/Canada,etc or someone who decided to knock on every door to get their first client and hone their skills throughout that process.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#55

Post by pmoriarty » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #47

pmoriarty wrote: post #8

"So if not talent, what other factor causes this skewed wealth distribution? "Our simulation clearly shows that such a factor is just pure luck," say Pluchino and co. "The team shows this by ranking individuals according to the number of lucky and unlucky events they experience throughout their 40-year careers. "It is evident that the most successful individuals are also the luckiest ones," they say. "And the less su…

If you were as unmotivated as described and also born poor instead of well off you would have found yourself homeless instead of living off your savings when you burnt out and instead of posting on hn you would probably be rotting in the ground.

Absolutely. I'm not saying that luck plays no role. It clearly does. But it's not, as the article claims, "just luck" (unless you don't believe in free will, in which case it is).

Parenthetically, I was born poor. My family had very little money when I was born, and what little they had they left behind in the old country when we immigrated to America. So I was poor when I was really young, and middle class by the time I left high school, thanks to the hard work (and maybe luck) of my parents.

But your point is taken... if I was really poor when it came time to work and I refused to do so, then I'd feel the lash of the economic whip, as I'm just about to do so now as I've burnt through my savings yet again....

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#56

Post by kangnkodos » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

The experiment design was flawed in the following way. What if, in real life, there are people who are much more likely to take big chances with their whole career trajectory? Also, what if there are people who are much more likely to perceive which products will change the world, and when. The combination of these two qualities is the key.

Even if these qualities are distributed on a normal curve, the result of possessing the right combination of qualities will have an extremely large effect in a winner take all world.

Sure, there will be some randomness involved. Start with two kids who both have the same optimal qualities, and only one will end up a billionaire. But my guess is that the second kid will also end up ahead of the average. If the simulation did not end up with this result, then my guess is that something was left out of the simulation.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#57

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

Years ago, a friend of the family said "You're so smart. Everyone thought you would be a millionaire by age thirty. What happened?" I pointed at my kids and said "They happened. And they take all my time." I was a full-time wife and mom. This is not a career known to lead to great wealth. So, for starters, not all interests or career paths have equal potential to lead to wealth. Intelligence in no way guarantees that…

[deleted]

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#58

Post by umvi » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

shadowtree wrote: post #35

martinni wrote: post #7

Rich people got "lucky" but they don't define what luck is to begin with. To quote Naval, there are 4 kinds of luck. 1. Blind luck - Where I just got lucky because something completely out of my control happened 2. Luck from hustling - luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. Which is when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, you’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lo…

2-4 are great examples of survivorship bias. For every success story with those traits are thousands of failures. If Bill Gates had been born and raised in Ruanda, you wouldn't know his name today. Same IQ, same hustler. But no parents with connections, no upbringing devoid of war and violence. It's just like in sports. Usain Bolt is not the fastest man alive. He is the fastest professional runner. Within a sample se…

Is it still survivorship bias if it took 20 failed attempts before a successful one?

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#59

Post by epx » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

Years ago, a friend of the family said "You're so smart. Everyone thought you would be a millionaire by age thirty. What happened?" I pointed at my kids and said "They happened. And they take all my time." I was a full-time wife and mom. This is not a career known to lead to great wealth. So, for starters, not all interests or career paths have equal potential to lead to wealth. Intelligence in no way guarantees that…

It is the same for men, too. I had everything set up to retire at 35... then I married. Sure, I am a more socially productive person now. My kid will someday pay taxes that will finance the retirement of people that didn't bother to have kids.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#60

Post by michaelmrose » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

winrid wrote: post #26

Even more luck is required with the way a lot of people on this site are trying to get rich (startups). Want to require less luck? Open some kind of store/service yourself and it'll pay off faster than investing in a startup most likely. A friend of mine runs a shipping office, single location. Not a giant or complicated business with 99.999% uptime. He always has much nicer race cars too.... :)

What percentage of the population can do so financially?