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Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

princeton.edu

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Re: Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

#111

Post by Dn_Ab »

rocken7 wrote: post #102

I had a great time reading the following group of related books. How To Beat the Dealer by Ed Thorp. You might think this is lame and outdated, but it will clue you into how bond traders think. In fact, Bill Gross of pimco was so inspired by the book that he went to Vegas and became a gambler (before pimco but OTW). That book also is the holy grail for card counting. It will up your blackjack at least, and prepare yo…

You either forgot to add or will likely enjoy Fortune's Formula by Poundstone.

Re: Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

#113

Post by RockyMcNuts »

jeremyarussell wrote: post #29
dan-k wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because something takes focus, passion, and effort doesn't mean there's not luck involved. Basically every major success story comes out of the intersection of those qualities; either one, on its own, typically just gives moderate "success" (e.g. comfortable middle class life), which is really not worth discussing in this context since it's more just the norm in life (at least in the modern western world). It's…

Basically every major success story comes out of the intersection of those qualities; I just wanted to let you know, I'm going to quote that, poorly though since it's out of context as it is. "Every major success story comes out of the intersection of luck and ability." - dan-k Has a nice ring to it.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lucius_annaeus_s...

Re: Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

#114

Post by aggie »

RyLuke wrote: post #69
liber8 wrote: post #33

I think part of the problem with realistically viewing one's life through this prism is the impossibility of determining what percentage of one's success is due to luck. In a sense, literally everyone who is alive today is lucky. They are the product of an unbroken line of genetic material passed down for millions of years. Can you imagine? Not one of their thousands and thousands of ancestors managed to be killed be…

This reminds me of a passage from Richard Dawkins' "Unweaving the Rainbow." "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scien…

I too thought of that passage but also this from Watchmen:

"There are thermodynamic miracles, events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold; I long to observe such a thing. And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter, until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold, that is the crowning unlikelihood, the thermodynamic miracle. The world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget. I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away. Come, dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg, the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly."

Re: Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

#115

Post by RockyMcNuts »

nirvana wrote: post #105
tedunangst wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say he's being downvoted for responding to the title, but not the content of the speech. Maybe the first reference to Goldman was a typo, but then repeating and insisting on that mistake? (Why not go back and check?) Calling the speech an article. People will conclude nirvana at best skimmed it. If you haven't read and understood the material, don't comment on it.

I read the speech. I also read Liars Poker. I knew Lewis had worked at Soloman Brothers, but somehow in the years since I read the book "Goldman" replaced "Soloman" in my head. So this is a typo. Of course that I named a different firm (equally hated) than the correct one doesn't change the content of my article. It is a post hoc, ergo proctor hoc argument to evade the obvious reason. The actual reason has been prese…

s/b Salomon Brothers

You may now resume proving Lewis's point, that "People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck."

Re: Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

#116

Post by smsm42 »

nostromo wrote: post #9

I've enjoyed two great books that discuss this: "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Johnson-G-t.h... ) and "Fooled by Randomness" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooled_by_Randomness ) I think people dislike talking about luck's role in our successes (but not failures) because it hints at a deterministic world view where our free will is less important…

Taleb's books were ones of the most thought-provoking I have ever read. Made me think differently about a lot of things that I thought I knew.

I think though people don't talk about role of luck also because it's useless to talk about it - you can't say: "my lesson for you, my son, is - always be lucky". People try to find something that they can actually do - even though many of what they end up doing is futile.

Re: Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

#117

Post by darnton »

LargeWu wrote: post #47
nostromo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but I'm talking about retrospection here, not prospection. People, even when talking about past successes, are very unlikely to admit their good fortune. In other words you're more likely to hear, "I worked very hard" than "I worked very hard and was very lucky." There are notable exceptions. Warren Buffet has openly talked about the role of luck in his success.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get" - Samuel Goldwyn

In "The Luck Factor" Richard Wiseman talks about the personality characteristics that are associated with luck. Agreeableness and conscientiousness are not (contra this saying, which gets attributed to all and sundry) but extroversion, [lack of] neuroticism, and openness are.

Re: Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

#118

Post by timwiseman »

twelvechairs wrote: post #75
LargeWu wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get" - Samuel Goldwyn

Samuel Goldwyn obviously never worked in a sweatshop. More seriously. Lots of people work very 'hard' for (what we would consider) very little compensation. Its more important to work smarter than 'harder' or with more 'effort'. (eg. Sometimes you also need to acknowledge when your efforts are leading nowhere and drop something - this might not be considered 'working hard' - though perhaps it should be)

It seems there are 3 main factors in success (or lack thereof):

Luck, working smarter, working harder.

Luck is a major factor for everyone, but you can't control it. You can certainly influence working smarter, but it is often a matter of juding in hindsight what was smart rather than determining it before hand. Working harder is much more under our control than the others.

It is important to acknowledge luck. This helps use be humble in our successes, not be too devestated in our failuers, and be compassionate to those less fortunate. It is also just plain true.

It is also important to try to work smart - creating a startup, writing a novel, etc at least has a chance of creating huge rewards and even changing the world...the odds of changing the world from inside the sweatshop you mention are close to nil.

But it is how hard we work that we can mostly control, and there is some truth to Goldwyn's quote...it just isn't all of the truth.

Re: Michael Lewis: Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie

#119

Post by smsm42 »

rudiger wrote: post #99
gruseom wrote: post #55

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621845

Some businessmen feel obligated to "give back." Who says they've taken anything? Paul Graham responds, "They've taken something from chance."

So they should give back to chance? How does one do that? It may be a nice turn of phrase, but sound like completely meaningless if one takes a minute to think about it.

One should be charitable because it's human to be compassionate to your fellow human being, not because being successful automatically puts you in debt to the God of Chance, which debt should be repaid or else. And not because by being successful you stole your success from somebody else.

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