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Comment by askyourmother | Hacker News Reader

Some of the most famous self-made wealthy individuals in the UK were from poor backgrounds of varying degree. I remember more than one stating that they felt if they wanted to escape that world, they had to make their own luck, grab every opportunity, be ready to change direction if fortuitous winds prevail, and essentially be there in body and mind to really give it a go. In some cases they literally start with nothing - failed school exams, work to acquire a very small amount of capital, see their first opportunity and go for it. Which can be seen as a series of well executed gambles.

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There's an insane amount of survivor bias in those stories. How many people put made equivalent effort but were broken by some random circumstance, or saved by outright luck or family connections?

It happens in technology too. I'm not sure how many people remember Dragon Dictate, but they were well ahead of the game in voice recognition in the 90s and 00s.

Then they made a bad mistake and got into a marketing partnership with individuals they would have been better off avoiding. This not only killed their business, it also meant they no longer own their own IP, which is currently wasting away in business limbo.

That's the point of the OP. Grit will only get you so far.

It's not about individual hero stories, it's about the probability of success for equivalent effort for entire populations, and how vulnerable they are to the effects of a single bad mistake.

That's where you can see the negative effects of some backgrounds, and the positive effects of others, most clearly.

Yes, it's something of a selection problem.

The assumption behind this belief set is that they were the select few who could do this. There is an alternative hypothesis that out of the large number of people with poor background who did this, they were the few somewhat randomly selected to succeed.

Certainly if you look at their biographies there seems to be a consistent element of right person in right place at right time - which suggests that there might be a lot more 'right people' than get lucky.

My father told me that the reason most people don't recognize opportunity is that it comes disguised as hard work.

I.e. nobody is going to get lucky by watching TV.

With due respect to your Dad, the implication that poor people are simply lazy is highly speculative and doesn't seem to match the data, including lack of resources and opportunity around them.

I agree that it isn't necessarily about laziness. As I said elsewhere, it's about working smart more than working hard - but it still involves actively doing something. But I do agree with my dad in that opportunity often goes unrecognized.

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