
Huge success in business is largely based on luck: new research - hhs
https://theconversation.com/huge-success-in-business-is-largely-based-on-luck-new-research-130843
======
cynicaltoss
(Using a throwaway for soon to be obvious reasons).

After being involved in several early stage startup companies and the usual
cast of characters (individual founders, angels, boards of all sorts,
investors, etc) my deeply held personal belief is that after intelligence and
hard work moral/ethical flexibility is the largest single factor in individual
success in business.

In virtually every scenario I've been involved in the individuals that made
out 10x or greater (compared to others) did so because they were willing to do
things the others were not.

I suppose one could frame it as "luck" but my experience has been "making your
own luck" is frequently only moderated by your own ability or willingness to
lie, cheat, manipulate, and generally be as soullessly ruthless and self-
serving as possible.

Consider two people. Both graduate from a top-tier law school and join a firm
as junior partners. One graduate sees nothing but tax avoision, various shady
legal maneuverings, high net worth senior partner infighting and politics,
etc. The other sees nothing but money, power, and opportunity.

One of the junior partners is disgusted by this and leaves the firm to go back
to their hometown and start a family law practice. They settle into a decent
upper-middle class lifestyle.

The other junior partner stays on, climbs the ladder, and goes on to join the
top X percent of the population in income and net worth.

Both are intelligent. Both worked hard. Both are "successful". However one
junior partner saw people at (arguably) their worst and was disgusted by it.
The other couldn't wait to really get in the game and play...

Hypothetical simple example but virtually identical to what I've seen play out
continually in business.

~~~
reverend_gonzo
While I entirely agree with your premise. I don't think that is the best
example.

Given those hypothetical people, I would bet that the one who went back to his
homewtown actually enjoys his life, while the other is miserable, but
surrounded in gold.

If the latter takes his ball and goes home, now that's a different story.

~~~
cynicaltoss
I'm assuming "success" as discussed in the article is the standard metric and
measured in currency.

Personally I've seen it all (to use characters from my story):

\- The small town family lawyer who is miserable and feels screwed that they
somehow couldn't or didn't want to swim with the sharks.

\- The partner at the firm on his third divorce, with kids who won't talk to
him, and living in constant worry of the various legally or morally dubious
things they've done. Ulcers, high blood pressure, and substance abuse disorder
included.

\- The opposite of the other who's stayed in touch with "that guy from law
school" who is perfectly happy and content only to look at the other and feel
pity for how miserable the other's life must be (and often is).

I know all of them and it's pretty strange... Especially when someone will say
"Yeah, XYZ is a great guy and good friend but you know... Don't ever trust
him." -or- conversely "Yeah what happened to ABC was strange... Guy kind of
flaked out. He seems to be doing ok, I guess."

We seem to be much better at measuring and discussing "success" than actual
happiness.

EDIT: typo

~~~
solveit
> We seem to be much better at measuring and discussing "success" than actual
> happiness.

Not surprising given how much easier it is to fake happiness than success.

------
gweinberg
To be hugely successful, you have be extremely talented AND work extremely
hard AND be lucky. Because there are lots of other hard working talented
people out there. This isn't news, it's written in Ecclesiastes and it
probably wasn't novel even back then.

~~~
koheripbal
There seems to be this overwhelming effort these days to attribute the success
of successful people as either entirely due to luck and/or to inheritance.

The allure of this belief is, of course, the self-gratification that comes
with not having to blame your own lack of success on yourself.

My company acts as an incubator for insurance agencies, of the many dozens
we've setup, most fail, and maybe 20% succeed. What's interesting is how
evident it is which ones will fail, and which will succeed within the first
month of working with them.

Those that succeed demonstrate hard work, intelligence, and thoughtfulness in
their work. ...and it's not easy finding those three things in one person.

Those that fail tend to have any number of personality flaws ("flaws" might be
too harsh a word) that prevents them from succeeding. Many are emotional,
which drives them to be very cyclic in their motivation level. Others lack the
analytical skills to manage their cash flows. Some burn relationships by being
consistently combative. It's honestly easy to ruin a startup - almost any
major personality flaw will corrupt such a small team and alienate people.

Luck follows the laws of averages - over enough time, the good luck balances
out with the bad luck - whereas hard work and intelligence are persistent. Our
successful agencies have each had their own story, and been successful at
different speeds, but all ultimately made it.

~~~
LiquidSky
>There seems to be this overwhelming effort these days to attribute the
success of successful people as either entirely due to luck and/or to
inheritance.

>The allure of this belief is, of course, the self-gratification that comes
with not having to blame your own lack of success on yourself.

You've gotten this exactly backwards.

Until recently the overwhelming story (at least in the US) is that success is
purely a result of your own personal effort, the self-made man who builds
himself ex nihilo by the sweat of his brow and his genius. What's been
happening recently is the recognition that this is, of course, ridiculous, and
that many factors go into success or failure. It's not that your success or
failure are entirely out of your control and your own efforts (or personality,
as you seem to indicate) mean nothing, it's just that there's more to it. For
example, what you describe in your post sounds like a classic case of
survivorship bias in action.

The allure of this belief is, of course, the self-gratification that comes
with believing you are simply superior to others and that's why you're
successful. There's also much comfort in believing that bad things only happen
to people who deserve it and so can't happen to me, since I'm smart and
hardworking. The discomfort with acknowledging outside factors is having to
admit that your success is not entirely your own doing, which is scary and
hurts one's ego.

------
ampdepolymerase
And luck too can be bought. With enough capital you can afford to play the
game again and again.

~~~
ttul
This is why startups are a game for rich kids. If you know you can’t really
lose, then you can just try again and again until you hit the three cherries.

~~~
eloff
I think rich kids will often lack the inner motivation and discipline to see a
startup through. That's the flip side of knowing you can fail and it won't
impact your life negatively. Startups are really hard, if you don't have that
burning desire and fear of failure driving you forward, I don't think too much
of your chances.

Anyone rich, or not can try again and again, it will just be harder for people
who also need to figure out how to pay the bills.

~~~
robocat
Agree. And richkid can only found X startups in their lifetime.

If they play the VC game, returns are still extremely variable.

If they play a bigger game, then they start to be playing the same game as
other players that the public can invest in (directly or indirectly) i.e. no
advantage.

------
dang
A couple of old pg comments come to mind.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621768)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=514177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=514177)

------
jmfayard
People always make fun of the little girl who wants to become the next
Madonna. So totally unrealistic right?

And then they read startup porn and copy Elon Musk habits to become as
insanely successful as him. Or at least as Peter Thiel.

I'm with the little girl. Her dream is not less realistic than the second one,
but much more meaningful.

~~~
koonsolo
You do not need to be Elon Musk to make a good living from your business, but
you will need to be in the top 0.1% to make a good singing career.

~~~
goatherders
Not even close. There are literally thousdand upon thousands of singers you
have never heard up that hsvw good careers.

~~~
koonsolo
Thousands is not that much is it?

Just look at the tv show 'the voice' and look at how many contestants they
start with, and how many end up making a living out of it.

The number of people with businesses are not expressed with "thousands".

~~~
goatherders
Using a network TV show as the measuring stick is a little silly. That's like
saying the only chefs who make a living out of it are the ones that make it to
Chopped or Top Chef.

There are plenty of singers that work with bands, operas, theater companies,
studios, schools, as performers, as songwriters, as backing singers and on and
on. The living they make is every bit similar to the living made by a guy that
owns a pest control company or a woman that owns a small bookkeeping firm.

~~~
koonsolo
> That's like saying the only chefs who make a living out of it are the ones
> that make it to Chopped or Top Chef.

Thanks for that comparison! With Top Chefs, most of them make a living as a
chef or cook. With The Voice, most of them don't (not even as backing vocals).
Why is that you think? To make a living as a chef or cook, you need to be in
the top 90%. To make a living singing (even as backing vocals), you need to be
in the top 0.1%.

~~~
goatherders
ALL of the chefs on Top Chef are professionals. All of them. That's the point
of the show.

NONE of the singers on the Voice are professionals. That's also the point of
the show.

The bigger point that clearly wasn't understood is that celebrity and success
aren't mutually inclusive when it comes to cooking or music. You can be a
successful chef that isn't on Top Chef just as you can be a successful voice
that never goes on American Idol. In fact MOST people successful in both
realms will never ever be on even a local TV show.

~~~
koonsolo
> The bigger point that clearly wasn't understood is that celebrity and
> success aren't mutually inclusive when it comes to cooking or music.

I already agreed with you on that above.

You don't even aknowledge the point that I'm making, let alone understand or
agree with it.

~~~
goatherders
You're right. I don't understand your point so I can't agree or disagree with
it.

I think you were suggesting that only the top .1% of singers who want to make
a living singing actually do. But the top 90% of chefs who want to make a
living being chefs actually do. If that is the point then I completely
disagree.

------
kangnkodos
Did the author take the power law into account?

A number one song earns two times as much as number two song. And a number two
song earns two times as much as a number three song earns and so on.

All I need to do is sign up one or two consistently good bands to make my
whole career. If I also sign up a bunch of one hit wonders, it's OK.

You see something similar in stocks. The big cap stocks are most likely to
shoot way, way up. If you invest in the next bunch down, the mid cap stocks,
then historically, you would not have made as much money.

It's possible that if you count the names of winners and losers, that the
author is right, and there are more winners in the midcaps than the large
caps.

But if you own large caps, you will own a few stocks shooting way, way up like
Amazon and lots of stocks that lose a little. If you own mid caps, you might
own a lot of stocks that go up a little, and only a few stocks that go down.
But because of the power law, you only need to own a few stocks like Amazon in
your portfolio to make more money with large caps than mid caps.

~~~
icedchai
This almost makes sense, except for the fact that small caps and mid caps both
give you greater returns _long term_ than large caps:
[https://fourpillarfreedom.com/stock-returns-small-cap-vs-
mid...](https://fourpillarfreedom.com/stock-returns-small-cap-vs-mid-cap-vs-
large-cap/)

------
npsimons
The dirty little secret that the successful don't like to admit. Plenty of
people worked as hard as they did - the only difference between them and the
"losers" is that they got lucky.

That being said, you'll never win if you don't try. One must be prepared to
take advantage of opportunity ("luck") when it happens, and showing up
_consistently_ (being in the right place) is half the battle. Being smart and
working hard _at the right things_ also vastly increases one's chances.

~~~
zipwitch
Then there's what's often called "privilege" (circumstances of birth). What
are the consequences _to you_ of taking a risk on being lucky and _missing_?

For some people, dropping out of college and spending a few years working on a
project that might pay out spectacularly is negligible. Sure, it's a few years
of lifespan, but you learned some stuff and your future trajectory isn't going
to be dragged down by a failure in your early 20s.

For others, one shot is all they'll ever get. If they don't get the degree and
the right job out of college, the trajectory of their life will be permanently
inflected downward.

Circumstances of birth have a huge impact on what chances are rational to
take.

~~~
npsimons
> For some people, dropping out of college and spending a few years working on
> a project that might pay out spectacularly is negligible. Sure, it's a few
> years of lifespan, but you learned some stuff and your future trajectory
> isn't going to be dragged down by a failure in your early 20s.

Precisely. People love to trot out Bill Gates as some business genius, but he
got lucky, a _lot_ , first by being born to wealth, then by getting the
contract with IBM. Later , Microsoft got by with underhanded and shady
business tactics (FUD) while clearly shipping far inferior product.

~~~
bluGill
Bill Gates wrote (mostly himself) the number one BASIC implementation,
something important enough that IBM thought they had to have it - this was not
luck in the same way DOS was luck. Even if the first PC shipped with CP/M as
the OS instead of DOS, Gates would still have been there. Microsoft wouldn't
have Windows today, but I think it is safe to say they would still have
Office.

Luck is involved in getting to the top. However there is a lot of hard work
required to take advantage of it. The unsuccessful often have better luck when
you look close - but they don't use their luck.

~~~
loopz
Gates wrote BASIC, in an age where people scrambled to solder their own boards
and connect circuitboards. Later Microsoft offered Visual Basic, including
ability to design your own forms and tie-in with code and data sources.

In hindsight, we know what really worked was Windows and Office. It is a kind
of luck to be so ahead of the curve, you can sort of coast, although it's a
lot of hard work, somehow the right people falls in your lap as well as
predatory opportunities (clone, buy and steal your competition).

While hobbyists and IBM scrambled, someone invested into the budding IBM PC-
clone platform. This is business acumen fueled by superior technological
vision and clarity (though at the same time blind).

Jobs had his own niche, catering more for end-UX and designers also
ruthlessly, ironically.

------
leovander
Most of the stories on How I Built This [0] say they got a lucky break, but
they worked their butts off. More so "You miss 100% of the shots you don't
take.", therefore increasing their "luck"?

[0] [https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-
this](https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this)

~~~
Bartweiss
What I think this underestimates is the exponential nature of big wins.

If you make a lot of shots, you'll get some successes, and this can be a
reliable path to some good outcomes in life. But founding a billion-dollar
company or beating the market for a decade means making a lot of shots _in a
row_. It's not enough to succeed at a high-risk, high-reward gamble, you have
to either take impossible odds or keep putting all your winnings back into the
next wager. (Less abstractly: landing funding for your company, selling the
product, escaping fatal competition, refusing the buyout, and so on.)

That doesn't make "take a lot of shots" untrue advice, obviously that still
improves your odds, but it has two major implications. First, taking more
shots may be less effective than improving your odds or raising your wager so
you don't need as many wins. Second, there's no guarantee that an individual
can ever have a reasonable expectation of winning big. It seems possible that
the only strategy capable of making you Bezos-level rich doesn't pay out
decently inside one lifetime.

~~~
bsder
> What I think this underestimates is the exponential nature of big wins.

Yeah, I'm not so convinced of his music business analogy. Normally, people in
the music business are quite aware of the fact that "a hit leads to another
hit".

The issue is that getting a "hit" means that people are willing to give you
more chances to get the next "hit".

Maybe your next song isn't as good, but, hey, we're willing to throw more
marketing behind it this time. Or, you've been playing bars, but the market
research shows your profitable group are tweeny girls, so you retarget your
tour sites. etc.

In this instance, the fact that you once had a hit means people are more
willing to apply resource to help you get the next hit (ie. music execs are
sheep--aka VC's are sheep).

------
open-source-ux
Luck plays a big factor in the success of many products.

We think success = product excellence: how else could a product rise to a
leading position in the market or to such pre-eminence unless it was better
than the alternatives?

Although success is sometimes tied to product excellence, the mountain of
successful products that range from mediocre to terrible shows there's often
little reason or rhyme to a product's success.

There's even an element of luck here in Hacker News. Just take a look at 'Show
HN' \- there are many excellent projects that get no attention or traction at
all. And then there a few lucky ones that suddenly take-off. There's no
"wisdom of the crowds" moment that propels one project to success over another
because it's more worthy or excellent - it really is random in so many cases.

------
aphextim
>Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity

\- Roman philosopher Seneca

~~~
nestorherre
Came in to post this, left satisfied. However, I like to add to the end:
"...and you act upon it"

------
c0nsilienc3
Well, it's not called survivorship bias for no reason. This kinda reminds me
of that show Halt and Catch Fire. Their computer, their next video game
platform, their next search engine... all of it was poised to become the next
big thing. Except it didn't. They were beaten by Apple, Nintendo, Yahoo, etc.

Lots of people have the same ideas about what can be successful--some idea
about some underserved market or whatever. They're all working at it night and
day on little to no sleep. They're all extremely smart and talented. Many of
them are willing to play dirty. Only few get lucky.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
> Such reference to luck is rare in management research. A review of the use
> of luck in leading management journals suggests that only 2% of articles
> mention the word. Business media and educators need to acknowledge that we
> have a lot of offer to help practitioners to make fewer mistakes in business
> and everyday life, but there is little we can teach about how to become
> exceptionally successful.

What bullshit. In research, we have a zillion different words for chance or
luck or stochasticity or randomness. There's a whole language for it. Citing
the lack of one of the least precise terms as evidence that there's a gap that
needs acknowledging is ridiculous, and the author surely knows it. I get that
he's trying to sell his book, but come on.

~~~
qnsi
I was skeptical it was a simple search for „luck” and he doesnt link to the
review but only his book.

I bought the book and found the source to the original study[1]. It actually
looks like they searched for luck articles, altough in this paper he goes and
talks about how different words are used for luck. I dont have time to examine
further

[1] Good Night, and Good Luck: Chengwei Liu & Mark De Rond 2016

~~~
hhs
Thanks for the study citation. This has an accessible pdf paper available:
[https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/255796](https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/255796)

------
jcims
There's a lot of lucky business that fold because they can't deal with the
success. So huge success requires both luck and skill/hard work.

~~~
alpha_squared
This is somewhat similar to winning the lottery vs building capital. Most
winners go broke a few years later because instantaneous wealth often lacks
discipline for managing it. Acquired wealth often takes time and the
discipline is built along the way.

------
x3n0ph3n3
What's the difference between luck and unknown dependent variables?

~~~
hogFeast
The study of luck is called ludometrics (there are a few interesting papers
related to sports on Arxiv). It is very tricky and there are several competing
notions of luck...I am not convinced that the method in the article is
particularly useful, particularly as it involves human decision-making where
you see power laws all the time...which doesn't necessarily indicate luck.
Maybe you could argue that the scale of the success is outsized but this is
largely a function of the way people consume, not luck...I don't know, it is
tricky (and I have spent a lot of time looking at this problem in sports).

------
mikhailfranco
Great interview with Demis Hassabis from the BBC (hint skip the journo intro).
It's meanderingly biographical, with insights about the long path to success:
internships, curiosity, startups, commitment, burnout, trusted team mates and
eventual successes ...

 _‘Just because you passionately believe in it, that doesn 't make it a good
idea’._

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06qvj98](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06qvj98)

------
zip1234
The article uses the 'Forbes 100 fastest growing companies' list and equates
it with the most successful companies. Fastest growing does not mean most
successful.

------
pedalpete
"The harder you work, the luckier you get." \- Gary Player

~~~
blunte
There are probably some immigrants working three jobs who would disagree with
that claim.

"The wealthier and more connected your family is, the luckier you get." \- me.

No amount of hard work beats starting off with all the opportunities and
plenty of OPP to work with.

~~~
pedalpete
I'd like to have you pose that question to Max Levchin, Sergey Brin, Sataya
Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and I'm sure others in the community can add to that
list.

Those are only the ones who have been lucky in rising to the top of tech. Look
at all the athletes who have started with nothing, actors, artists,
scientists.

I won't disagree that those who are well connected are starting off in a
luckier position, but there are MANY examples of the lucky and lazy falling
from grace.

Can I suggest you don't look at the world as a zero-sum game.

What is "OPP" in your parlance, I know a few acronyms of that, but nothing
that fits.

------
aaron695
This article is not saying success is based on luck.

It's not saying long term success is based on luck.

It is not saying the hugely successful companies or hugely successful people
are based on luck.

It's saying a temporary 'rate of change' on success should not be confused
with success.

It is saying people should not look when success fluctuates for a company or
person. But before or after.

It then screws up and says "myth of meritocracy" in the last line which has
nothing to do with what they are saying and confuses people.

------
gdubs
It’s human nature that when something good happens, we like to credit
ourselves. When something bad happens, we tend to blame others.

------
IanDrake
The beginning of this article seems to conflate "success" with riding a short
term "fad".

Only after you conflate those two, you can equate success with luck.

Once you get out of SV, business success has little to do with fart apps and
birds that are angry or have flappy appendages and more to do with skill,
knowledge, and hard work.

------
graeme
The new research cited in the title is the author’s book:
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Luck-Business-Idea-Ideas-
Management...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Luck-Business-Idea-Ideas-
Management/dp/1138094269/ref=sr_1_1)

The article discusses older research

------
tasubotadas
The only research that is referenced there is the
[https://journals.aom.org/doi/pdf/10.5465/AMBPP.2018.19](https://journals.aom.org/doi/pdf/10.5465/AMBPP.2018.19)
which only has an introduction.

~~~
qnsi
Study where he searches for luck in full text and finds 2% mention luck

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19416520.2016.11...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19416520.2016.1120971)

------
lihaciudaniel
"I'd rather be lucky than smart... in business"

------
allie1
How does that explain serial entrepreneurs that have more than 2 successful
startups under their belt? Or VCs with a long track record of successful
investments?

------
cameldrv
Luck is just a set of factors that the author didn't model. There is a reason
for everything, some reasons are just more complicated than others.

------
adelHBN
When I started my first start-up the elderly amongst my family and friends
said more than anything, we wish you "luck".

------
shahbaby
And after they win big, they build an audience of suckers with which they
share the "secrets" of their success.

------
buboard
there is no data in the referenced article

~~~
qnsi
he only links to his book. If you are interested it seems he cites a lot of
his research, eg 2% of papers mentioning luck is his work:

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19416520.2016.11...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19416520.2016.1120971)

------
graycat
Yes, the important role of luck is what is true usually, and even nearly
always.

If you were picking life directions, startup projects, etc. from such
directions and projects _randomly_ , i.e., uniformly distributed across such
directions and projects and independent of everything else, then the _usual_ ,
more accurately, the _average_ (expectation) is what you should expect to get.

BUT, BUT, BUT you do NOT have to pick directions and projects this way!!!!

There are other ways to pick. Yes they are rarely done, but there is a
beautiful even spectacularly good history!

The first key is, use more and hopefully better information than is _usual_.

Here are some such projects:

There used to be typewriters and carbon paper. Not so good. So, Xerox
developed and sole a much better solution. Presto, bingo, super big success.

Typewriters remained clumsy -- with the labor, a massive economic waste. IBM
developed and sold their Selectric typewriters with a little spool for
"corrections". It was much better and a big success.

Typewriters were still a pain. Along came personal computers. Even with just
640 KB of memory, no hard disk, and only 8" diskettes for storage, and a dot
matrix printer, they were MUCH better than typewriters. With a daisy wheel
printer with a carbon ribbon, they were much better, still. They sold "like
hot cakes".

It's possible to have a toothache. I got one of those: I'd gritted my teeth
getting CorelDraw working with PostScript output; nice output, but I cracked
two molars. On one I had a root canal procedure and a gold crown. Eventually
the other one let some infection into the center of the tooth. Result: CO2
pressure; worst pain imaginable. In about an hour, the CO2 pressure was high
enough to leak out via the crack, and then an hour later the pain started
again. I went to the ER. About then the pain started again. The ER physician
just took out a Q-tip, dipped it in a small bottle, painted my tooth, and I
was OKAY!!!!! He said he used Benzocaine which is what dentists use before
giving an injection and is over the counter. So I rushed to a drug store and
stocked up! So, Benzocaine -- works GREAT, got to have such a sore tooth to
understand the real value. Not much chance of no market for Benzocaine!
Result: A few days later the pain quit. A few weeks later, the tooth was loose
in its socket. A week later it was gone!

We can all see places where there is a need and some good technical work will
create a great solution highly desired by the market.

Sure, about the best will be one pill taken once that cures any cancer with no
side effects. All we need is the pill, and presto, bingo, a 100 X unicorn!
Sure, so far after no doubt some $billions in research funding, no one knows
how to make that pill. But there is progress, and on and on we will be curing
cancers until we have cured all or nearly all of them. Some of the cures will
be very valuable.

So find a big need; use some advanced, _leading edge_ , partly original,
difficult to duplicate or equal, technology to get a terrific solution. Tell
the world. Buy a nice place in Aspen, along the Florida coast, in Maine, on
Long Island (as in the Audrey Hepburn movie _Sabrina_ ), in Shenandoah, etc.
and enjoy life!

So, given a problem, need a solution. Can we have any faith in technology? Hmm
.... In WWII, the world learned, YES: Radar, penicillin, the proximity fuse,
sonar, jet engines, code making and breaking, and The Bomb. Later the world
learned from the SR-71, the Navy's nuke powered submarines, the Navy's version
of GPS later done by the USAF, Keyhole, basically a Hubble but aimed at the
earth, and much more. These projects were funded mostly by the US DoD, and the
track record, _batting average_ , _bang for buck_ were terrific. In
particular, the US DoD can look at a project proposed just on paper, evaluate
it, go or not go, and achieve the track record. Very little luck needed!

Apparently Silicon Valley can't/won't do projects this way. So, there is an
opportunity: If can find the problem, stir up the technology, and write the
software, all as a small project, small team, maybe even sole, solo founder,
then maybe can shop for those nice houses and no luck required!

Common? The usual? No. Possible? Yes.

Back to it!

------
ronilan
Two long time friends walk down the street. Sees one something shiny and picks
it up. “A gold coin!”. At exactly the same time a bird poops on the second’s
head. They are upset. They blame their friend. “If you hadn’t stopped the poop
would have missed me”. “Further more”, they say, ”here is the full list of all
the bad decisions I made through life and anyone and anything that has ever
wronged me and brought me to the shity situation I’m in”. “You included”.
“No”, says the first, “Our situation couldn’t have been better”. “Further more
here is a list of all the smart decisions I have made and anyone and anything
that have supported and elevated me to where I am to day“. Then they looks at
their poop covered friend and say ”I do not associate with negative thinkers”.
And friends they are no more. End.

~~~
cheez
Brilliant

