I really want to see more articles like this on HN. However, this is really "career advice for people at struggling companies." The luck part doesn't get discussed in the way I expected. To me, bad luck is things like: - You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID - Despite your best efforts at networking, you simply never meet that ma…
As someone who got hit with several of those: the best advice is "Find good ways to deal with your frustration and start adjusting your expectations downward. Start by getting a therapist."
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a reliable way to recover your losses besides "get lucky in the future". Your career advice is the same as everyone else's, just with worse expected outcomes.