
Ask HN: Luck or Hard Work? - zdmc23
Please explain why...
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pg
Luck is a multiplier of work. It's exceptionally rare to benefit from pure
luck-- to find buried treasure, or something like that. Usually you have to be
working on something to give luck room to strike.

Luck can also set you up in a better position initially. E.g. you could be
lucky enough to be born in a country not run by kleptocratic dictators, or to
have a received a good education, or to have good health. But you always seem
to have to work a certain amount to make a bridge from this initial luck to
later stage luck.

~~~
zdmc23
I certainly agree that "tinkering around" can lead to amazing discoveries
(e.g., penicillin, chemotheraphy) and/or great timing (e.g., pets.com)...

The reason why I posted the thread is because I've come across a lot of
brilliant people who just so happen to be very "self-righteous." They assume
that their intellect and sheer willpower will translate into entrepreneurial
success...

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sho
The question is bad, the binary options are false.

Imagine I build and launch twitter2.com. I put a lot of hard work into it. It
fails, of course. Was I unlucky?

Obviously there is (at least) a 3rd dynamic at work. It's hard to nail it
down, but let's called it insight.

When I first saw twitter, soon after it was launched, I thought it was stupid.
Actually, I still think that. But obviously they were onto something.
Obviously the market for that kind of service is much larger than I would have
imagined.

They worked hard, no doubt. They had luck, I suppose, that the idea first
occurred to them, that they had the skills necessary to pursue it, that they
were born into a rich society with the leeway available to pursue speculative
opportunities, etc. You can go as far as you like with that kind of digging.

But without insight, that people would want such a thing, they'd have nothing.
"Luck OR hard work" is meaningless. It removes any kind of decision-making
from the equation. That decision, of what to work hard on, in which arena luck
might have the opportunity to shine on you, is critical. Anyone can work hard.
Anyone can experience a little bit of random luck. Insight is what ties it
together, turns good into great, turns mere effort into rousing success.

~~~
zdmc23
Bah! There are plenty of people who think they have insight into a particular
market when they release their product. Some of those people show "insight" in
hindsight, but what about the others? Were they less insightful?

If twitter2.com takes off: you look like a genius; but if it flops, you just
lacked insight?

~~~
sho
_"Some of those people show "insight" in hindsight, but what about the others?
Were they less insightful?"_

Well obviously?

 _"If twitter2.com takes off: you look like a genius; but if it flops, you
just lacked insight?"_

Sure, more than you lacked "hard work" or "luck".

I was presenting "twitter2.com" as an extreme example. Of course, it will
never succeed. We can recognise that because it takes just a minimal amount of
insight to predict it. What I'm trying to demonstrate, through this contrived
example, is that luck won't save you if you worked hard on something dumb.

Insight! Decisions! What to do, what to make! These are key; why bother
arguing?

The question presumes that there are just two factors to success: hard work
and luck. I'm trying to say that there is at least one more critically
important factor, which I loosely labelled "insight", with a disclaimer no
less! I don't see why this is controversial, it seems self-evident.

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Tangurena
A lot of "luck" is previous preparation - aka hard work.

And some luck is genuine luck, such as when your main competitor is out flying
a plane when VeryLargeCorp wants to buy the software that both of you produce,
reducing your competitor to irrelevance, and giving you a huge boost.

~~~
zdmc23
Ok, then I have a follow-up: Do you think that what you do is more important
than who you know?

~~~
Tangurena
I come from a nerd background, therefore one of my axioms used to be "what
_you_ know is more important than _who_ you know." I ran for election last
year and I found that our society values the exact opposite: fads, fashions
and popularity are far more important to the general public.

While I recognize that networking is important in a business environment, I
also noticed that much of it is not very distinguishable from the popularity
contests of high school cliques. It is as if the world pg describes in "Why
Nerds are Unpopular" continues in a far less dramatic fashion after high
school: that we can escape much of the harshness, yet not all of it.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html>

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pasbesoin
At the level of anecdote, the misfortune that many lottery winners eventually
encounter (lose it all, and/or enter social isolation) makes me think that
luck is not sufficient. Without work and preparation, you will not be able to
capitalize on luck when it does occur.

Now, if someone wants to prove the contrary, feel free to give me a bunch of
money I wasn't expecting.

~~~
zdmc23
"Now, if someone wants to prove the contrary, feel free to give me a bunch of
money I wasn't expecting."

Sorry, you're just not that lucky!

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vaksel
Both.

You need hardwork to exploit the luck you get.

~~~
zdmc23
Perhaps, but which is more important?

It seems more likely that someone could succeed by simply being lucky, than if
they worked hard and never ran into the "right" person, found themselves at
the "right" conference, been born into the "right" family or country or
situation, etc...

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

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cmos
every time my company has almost gone out of business, something has happenend
to keep it around. Sometimes it's a spike in sales, other times a last minute
investment.

I consider myself the hardest working luckiest guy in the world.

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mixmax
[http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2009/02/getting-lucky-is-hard-
wo...](http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2009/02/getting-lucky-is-hard-work.html)

Disclaimer: Shameless self plug...

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HSO
both necessary, none sufficient

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GrandMasterBirt
Without hard work any lucky oportunity can fade away

Without luck you just work hard nonestop with little payoff

