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Comment by mmatants | Hacker News Reader

In fact, the secret of the not-as-young people is to manufacture the luck as much as they can and increase exposure to serendipity through consistent - well - showing up. And behind most lucky youngsters are diligent parents and support networks that know this lesson and apply it to their offspring, even if the offspring stay unaware.

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I've heard this quote before in various forms but I don't like it.

The luck applies to those who are already doing everything right. The other people are "failures" because you can pinpoint where they were deficient. When I think about luck and success I picture a pool of highly educated, ambitious, type A people. Why does one of them become an industry tycoon billionaire while the others become merely wealthy? You can manufacture luck for the latter but not the former.

   "manufacture the luck"

If you can manufacture it, it isn't luck, period. And you need some luck to succeed.

Your broader point stands though, you miss 100% of the opportunities you didn't show up for.

I think the idea is more like that saying "Opportunity is a meeting of luck and preparation". So maybe it's more like 'manufacture opportunity' by constantly showing up prepared.

I like that much better.

Luck is when things fall out better than you could reasonably have expected. Opportunities are something you can work for.

manufacturing the conditions for luck. Sheesh.

I think the distinction is important.

There is a pernicious lie we tell, culturally, about success as if it were a matter of worth and effort. The truth is most success has a strong element of luck, and many failures as well.

you're not looking at the right examples. Sure luck. But my colleagues who started companies who are 40 - 300 employes strong now, they did not do it by luck. They wanted something, knew how to do things better, took risks and made it. Then 15 years later somebody could say something about luck but it's almost insulting. However my colleauges would acknowledge luck, but in reality it was just a ton of the right decisions and service to others creates the momentum.

Luck is just probability, and the Law of Large Numbers says that low-probability events are much more likely to happen if you sample repeatedly.

No, luck is when your manage to get a sample that is much better than the expectation value. Of course this has to happen for some people, some of the time - but counting on it is irrational.

There is nothing lucky about merely resampling until in expectation you should see the result you want. That's just doing the work.

>There is nothing lucky about merely resampling until in expectation you should see the result you want. That's just doing the work.

That's just showing up.

You could also consider luck to be our sampling bias of only taking into account the successful outcomes.

The population as a whole that is attempting to determine the 'next big thing (tm)' does the majority of the sampling (with a small amount of resampling from those who manage a second or third try). We then read the stories of the successful outcomes and call it luck.

> If you can manufacture it, it isn't luck, period.

I'm not sure I agree with the statement.

It is possible that a certain outcome is attached to a certain action, but the link between the two is sufficiently hidden that the outcome seems like luck. Is it luck? It surely looks like luck, and behaves like luck. I would call it luck.

But of course for some people, that link might be a little more obvious. Those are the people that can "manufacture luck."

I would like to note, it's usually not a single action that generate luck, it's a set of complex actions, which is why it's hard to manufacture, and stays luck.

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