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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

#61

Post by Dn_Ab »

larrys wrote: post #27
nirvana wrote: post #4

My success and failures in life have had nothing to do with luck. I've been both lucky and unlucky at various times, but none of them have determined my level of success over the short or long term to any significant degree. At the same time I've had periods where I worked hard and was focused and passionate about what I was doing, and periods where I was not passionate, unmotivated by a crushingly poorly run organiz…

I'm always fascinated by downvoting on HN. I'm guessing you expressed what you felt "my success and failure in life had nothing to do with luck" and people are saying by downvoting that you are wrong!!! Why? You didn't say "people's success or failure" you said "my success or failure". In this case the downvoters are being parental and telling you to grow up and have a better understanding of the way the world works.…

I can give a very simple explanation of how luck is a part of the equation of success for anyone who has ever been born. The distribution of opportunity is clustered in certain locations. It is not even.

To be born in a country with equal opportunity, libraries, free education, water, electricity, non dictators. That is lucky.

Wealth arguably follows a log normal distribution. This means all the benefits combine multiplicatively, so that even seemingly small differences in the positive will combine to give a substantial advantage.

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

#62

Post by randomdata »

paulhauggis wrote: post #39
hjkl wrote: post #14

I'm surprised by how defensive people can get about their own success. It seems to me that you can never know if your success was due to your own hard work or some lucky breaks (or, more probably, a combination of both to which you'll never know the balance). It reminds me of the story about thousands of people flipping coins. Out of those thousands of people, some of them are going to flip a long string of heads. Do…

Using this logic, pretty much everything is due to luck. finish your PHD? You were lucky that you were accepted and that you had a good enough education to get into the program. "It seems to me that you can never know if your success was due to your own hard work or some lucky breaks" You may have a point. But, I'm really tried of people attributing all success to luck (and using this as an excuse as to why they aren…

Nobody wins the lottery without playing, and playing requires some level of work to manage the variables (when to buy, where to buy, what to play, how much to spend, etc.). Why does a lottery win have to be pure luck? Why is it not fair to say those choices you made are what lead to the success? Heck, if you work hard enough, you might win several times[1]. The contrast you are trying to highlight is just not clear to me.

[1] http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/18821/61/

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

#63

Post by kylebrown »

Its amazing how self-defensive some successful people can become about their socioeconomic status. An implication that luck had any more than a very minor contribution is blasphemous. Some can become outraged at the suggestion that they might own one penny that wasn't earned fair and square. Completely on their own, with no help from anybody. Not even scholarships count as help (they're earned).

And for some reason, admitting that one received assistance from one's parents is taboo. Just look at the Romney campaign for a prominent example:

"I could have stayed in Detroit like him and gotten pulled up in a car company," Romney said at the debate. "I went off on my own. I didn't inherit money from my parents. What I have, I earned. I worked hard, the American way."[1]

1: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/...

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

#64

Post by RobAtticus »

CUR10US wrote: post #12

"This isn't just false humility. It's false humility with a point." This is why I like Lewis' writing. Liar's Poker had a huge influence on me at an influential age. There's always a sense that he's playing the same game that he's writing about. And not in a George Plimpton sense. But he's often got a message to deliver that other players will not touch. The message always seems worth hearing. I interpret his referen…

Re: making it longer. I think it was pretty much spot on in terms of length. This is a speech at graduation/commencement, nobody wants to hear someone yammer on and on and on. He had a point, which he illustrated with 3 concise examples (Liar's Poker, Moneyball, the Berkeley study). He could elaborate, certainly, but I don't think this was the forum for it. Maybe he'll find a venue in which to elaborate at some other time, but I think this pretty much perfect.

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

#65

Post by tedunangst »

larrys wrote: post #27
nirvana wrote: post #4

My success and failures in life have had nothing to do with luck. I've been both lucky and unlucky at various times, but none of them have determined my level of success over the short or long term to any significant degree. At the same time I've had periods where I worked hard and was focused and passionate about what I was doing, and periods where I was not passionate, unmotivated by a crushingly poorly run organiz…

I'm always fascinated by downvoting on HN. I'm guessing you expressed what you felt "my success and failure in life had nothing to do with luck" and people are saying by downvoting that you are wrong!!! Why? You didn't say "people's success or failure" you said "my success or failure". In this case the downvoters are being parental and telling you to grow up and have a better understanding of the way the world works.…

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.

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

#66

Post by RockyMcNuts »

nirvana wrote: post #4

My success and failures in life have had nothing to do with luck. I've been both lucky and unlucky at various times, but none of them have determined my level of success over the short or long term to any significant degree. At the same time I've had periods where I worked hard and was focused and passionate about what I was doing, and periods where I was not passionate, unmotivated by a crushingly poorly run organiz…

Perhaps you were lucky to be in a situation where you had the opportunity to work hard and it could make a difference.

A lot of people are born with very limited opportunities. If you were born a healthy male in France in 1895, you were probably dead or maimed at 23, regardless of how hard you or your parents worked.

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

#67

Post by bradleyland »

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…

And if you recursively click the first link in Wikipedia articles, you end up at philosophy :)

My point is that if you dedicate a lot of time thinking about any particular aspect of life, you end up back at the "Getting to Philosophy" problem. Your luck comes in shades of grey. At some point, the line between black and white is drawn rather arbitrarily.

Would I consider myself "lucky" to be born in the US? To be born at all? Sure, why not. It's at least a statistical significance. But that stroke of luck was just the basis from which I built my relative level of success. The same is true for any starting point. The more relevant question is, does it really matter?

I wouldn't say that contemplating the deeper meaning of one's own "luck" is a waste of time, but obsessing over it is foolish. While you're busy contemplating how lucky you are, the other person is busy positioning themselves to succeed.

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

#68

Post by brown9-2 »

stickfigure wrote: post #45

A quick parable: You sense a random opportunity, work your ass off, and turn it into a great success. False narrative #1: This success is solely due to your hard work! False narrative #2: This success is solely due to luck! I haven't read ML's books (yet) but I think this speech leans too heavily on narrative #2.

I don't think he is saying anything is "solely" anything else. Just that it's unlikely that #1 is the full explanation.

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

#69

Post by RyLuke »

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, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

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