The Role of Luck in Life Success • Hacker News Board

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#41

Post by neveroffensive » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

franzmafka wrote: post #7

elnygren wrote: post #2

You can only get lucky if you position yourself to be able to get lucky. In addition, you need that carpe diem attitude to exploit any lucky breaks. A business opportunity is not gonna magically appear if you are not constantly looking for one and you won’t be able to exploit it if you haven’t learned relevant skills and built a network.

A million factors determine your trajectory long before you either do or do not prepare for this or that opportunity.

> A million factors determine your trajectory

This is inaccurate, or at the very least, incomplete. Mainly I take issue with the use of the word, "determine".

Randomness plays a huge role in the direction of a persons life, there is no denying this. However, a persons trajectory in life is only influenced by this. It's also very much influenced by choice. More importantly, there is ample evidence to suggest that choices can dramatically reduce the influence of randomness.

In my mind the equation is something like this:

(choices)/(randomness)=(chance of success)

Where (randomness) is a constant, and (choices) increases with good directed choices and decreases with bad or indiscriminate choices.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#42

Post by ph0rque » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

This study seems like a subtle ad for UBI. If everyone gets more resources, the most talented will be the most successful (instead of the moderately talented but incredibly lucky).

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#43

Post by downandout » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

One point of contention I have with this article is that it mentions that many CEOs were born during certain months and have names starting with certain letters. The mere mention of the phrase I am about to use always draws the ire of the HN crowd, but I see a big correlation/causation issue with that specific data point.

As for the larger point of the article, I always frame this conversation in this way: if you were lucky enough to be born in a first world country, you can become a millionaire through hard work with relatively little luck involved, but you have to get very lucky to become a billionaire.

In other words, the kind of large scale success that it takes to become a billionaire is nearly always dependent upon numerous factors outside of your own control, any one of which could easily put billionaire status out of reach. Becoming a single digit millionaire, however, can be done by anyone of at least average intelligence, that is willing to work long and hard in a field that has historically paid its workers well. Jobs in technology, finance, medicine, and even some trades (master plumbers/electricians etc.), pay well enough that anyone who manages their money properly should be on track to become a millionaire at some point during their lifetime.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#44

Post by snarf21 » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

bluetwo wrote: post #18

axiom92 wrote: post #3

I've at times stated that anyone who says that luck isn't important has possibly never had any success in life. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in any pursuit. Hard work shrinks the error bars in the distribution of success but doesn't make them disappear.

"The harder you work the luckier you get..."

Mostly true. There is the other version of "luck favors the prepared". You can get lucky and not be able to capitalize on it.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#45

Post by CM30 » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

thisisit wrote: post #13

At the opposite end of the spectrum is modern self-help culture seems to focus entirely on hard work, habits etc. I routinely balk at stuff promoting 7, 10 or 100 habits of successful people, CEO, leaders or otherwise, as if following them blindly will get you any where. While hard work helps, it takes some luck to succeed.

Honestly, most of those pieces are really just cargo culting more than anything else. They don't know exactly why a CEO or leader did well, so they look at their mannerisms and everyday habits and assume those were all things that made them more successful rather than ones they were good enough to overcome/that were completely irrelevant.

Well that and the real lessons (aka, luck has a role) isn't quite as soundbite friendly when written in article format.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#46

Post by antisthenes » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #43

One point of contention I have with this article is that it mentions that many CEOs were born during certain months and have names starting with certain letters. The mere mention of the phrase I am about to use always draws the ire of the HN crowd, but I see a big correlation/causation issue with that specific data point. As for the larger point of the article, I always frame this conversation in this way: if you wer…

Just for clarification, when you mean millionaire, do you mean a positive net worth of $1,000,000 or just having earned $1,000,000 in some arbitrary period of time?

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#47

Post by antisthenes » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

mtgex wrote: post #17

elnygren wrote: post #2

You can only get lucky if you position yourself to be able to get lucky. In addition, you need that carpe diem attitude to exploit any lucky breaks. A business opportunity is not gonna magically appear if you are not constantly looking for one and you won’t be able to exploit it if you haven’t learned relevant skills and built a network.

You can't position yourself to be born a white male, which I believe affords the greatest advantages, and opens the most opportunities of any personal attribute you can have.

Stop trying to make it a race and gender issue. It helps no one but the rentier class to further divide the people they are extracting profit from.

What wealth 'class' you are born into has by far the biggest effect on your chance of success.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#48

Post by StriverGuy » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

The most important quote:

"In general, those with greater talent had a higher probability of increasing their success by exploiting the possibilities offered by luck. Also, the most successful agents were mostly at least average in talent. So talent mattered."

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#49

Post by downandout » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #46

downandout wrote: post #43

One point of contention I have with this article is that it mentions that many CEOs were born during certain months and have names starting with certain letters. The mere mention of the phrase I am about to use always draws the ire of the HN crowd, but I see a big correlation/causation issue with that specific data point. As for the larger point of the article, I always frame this conversation in this way: if you wer…

Just for clarification, when you mean millionaire, do you mean a positive net worth of $1,000,000 or just having earned $1,000,000 in some arbitrary period of time?

I meant a net worth of at least $1MM.

Re: The Role of Luck in Life Success

#50

Post by jandrese » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #44

bluetwo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The harder you work the luckier you get..."

Mostly true. There is the other version of "luck favors the prepared". You can get lucky and not be able to capitalize on it.

Or luck is required, but not sufficient for success. You also have to put in the hard work and be smart.

Put another way, you can't win if you never get to play the game.

The world no doubt has a bunch of self starting geniuses who are trapped in poverty in some third world country and will never amount to anything. It's an enormous waste of an incredibly rare resource.