Michael Bloomberg on starting a business during tough economic times (1982)

Though might be less true for writers. Look at JK Rowling and Toni Morrison for example.

Some of this is documented in the book "Liar's Poker" by Michael Lewis, who went on to write "Moneyball" and "The Big Short."

This is definitely wrong. Take almost any CEO and at 25 their careers are pretty close to pretty much every middle manager at any other big corp. There are of course outliers, but start with Tim Cook and just go down the list.

By 35 most people have their trajectory starting to lock, but there are also many 35 year olds who's destiny is far from certain.

Also, what is with the fatalism?

>Or put another way, I've always felt that by 25 you are who you will be.

>There will always be outliers who finds a reason to turn his/her life around but almost all the successful people I know had an impressive track record of accomplishments before their big success happened.

You likely know a tiny fraction of 'successful people'.

If that's the case, I (25) think I'd rather get a bottle of whiskey and a handgun and end it now.

In it he says, "The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest."

I think the part about opportunity is probably the most applicable outside of research. If you go to a good school or have done a good job at work, then you're more likely to get promoted or given more responsibilities. And with more responsibility, you can show again that you can do a good job and thus get further responsibilities.

Christ 40 year old me is glad this isn't true.

There's no attempt to balance it with a control group of people who are always successful but never attract any real notoriety, or people who are rarely successful but have a giant hit that catapults them forward, and there's no methodology for defining what these antecedent success markers actually are.

This part however illustrates the biggest problem:

> Most successful people build on an increasing track record of successful events before hitting their big success.

Most people don't have "track records" until they are notable, at which point they have the ability to retrospectively define themselves however they please, since they most likely haven't been under journalistic surveillance the entire time.

but i also know a handful of folks with success that did not go to good schools or have great careers but achieved significant business success: an oil rig machine parts manufacturer, a fabric mill owner, a latex manufacturer, a luxury furniture reseller, that have achieved success because their friends and networks are the kind of guys who will keep having goes at different businesses and products until something sticks. most of these businesses aren't cutting edge technology but there is a lot of value in unifying supply chains that are still very dependent on trust and know-whos, as well as having a bit of edge in the business negotiation process. their success had little to do with which schools they went to, only that they surrounded themselves with other people who made business their focus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/nyregion/at-1-1-billion-bl...

Check out Ray Kroc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kroc

Colonel Sanders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders