Comment by hyperpallium | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hyperpallium | Hacker News Reader

> We mixed the two ingredients in our kitchen, tasted the result and it was certainly intriguing, but in reality bloody awful. Undaunted, we threw in some sugar and it got better, but it still missed something.

> We went back to the store, searching the shelves for something else, found our salvation in Cadbury’s Powdered Drinking Chocolate and added it to our formula. Hugh and I were taken by surprise. It tasted really good. Not only this, but the cream seemed to have the effect of making the drink taste stronger, like full-strength spirit. It was extraordinary.

They iterated, but not because they thought the product would taste great, but because it fitted nicely with business and marketing considerations: tax breaks and diary connotations. I guess it's serendipity that they found the combination so quickly, and would have otherwise given up after a while.

Quitters never win and winners never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.

> Quitters never win and winners never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.

That is pretty much the definition of survivorship bias, in that you never know which of those groups you fit into in advance (or possibly ever).

As someone once wrote: Most successful startup advice is tautology or survivorship bias.

On the other hand, the failure rate for those who never try is 100%.

Never doing a startup != failure.

I wouldn't call getting a large steady paycheck at a nine-to-five a 'failure'.

neither would the person you responded to; clearly they're talking about failing at a successful startup

I'm not sure. Why would people "who never try" end up at a startup, successful or otherwise?

EDIT: Hmm, I guess you meant "fail at having running a successful startup?" Yeah, probably.

Since I've never tried swimming, I drowned.

Only if one doesn't account for the opportunity cost.

E.g. if one tries and fails 5 times and ends up nowhere (or in debt), another person that never tried but used the same time and effort and got to a 200K salary has it better.

That's the tautology part.

>fitted nicely with business and marketing considerations: tax breaks and diary connotations.

They didn't know about the tax breaks at the time.

Some people only win big in the last few years of their long life. Were they idiots for not quitting?

In some cases, definitely. Some people play the lottery their entire lives and win in the last few years of their long lives. They were still wrong for not quitting, even though they happened to get their pay out.

Some people I know that play the lottery just view it as entertainment. It's not really for me, but I can see their point.

Obviously it's not entertainment in any concrete form. It just takes 1 minute every week or so to play the lottery, and that's about it.

It's wishful thinking and daydreaming more than entertainment.

Daydreaming is a form of entertainment. They take a minute a week to play, but can take hours imagining - or discussing with others - what they'll do if they win.

I wouldn't recommend it, but I can understand it.

> "They were still wrong for not quitting, even though they happened to get their pay out."

That makes no sense. When someone plays the lottery they don't put their life on hold until they win. Nobody seriously plans their life around a big lottery win, most people just play it for fun, the feeling of anticipation just before the draw. After a draw takes place and they've not won, they just go back to whatever plans they had before. Gambling addiction is more serious, but many people are casual gamblers, including those that play the lottery every week. I don't play the lottery often, but I can see for most people it's a harmless activity.

There are definitely people out there who spend large sums of money on lottery tickets or scratch cards they probably shouldn't be buying and consider it their retirement plan. Many of them have no other viable path to an actual retirement, many just don't know any better. But they do exist.

>That makes no sense. When someone plays the lottery they don't put their life on hold until they win. Nobody seriously plans their life around a big lottery win

You'd be surprised. Especially if we expand the "lottery" to cover betting (horses, etc), gambling, and such stuff.

Obviously we can find a few cases that are the exception to just about any subject above physics. I was also hoping that, on a place as entrepreneurial as hacker news, I wouldn't have to explicitly exclude big wins where your chances of winning don't substantially increase with increases in experience. Nor did I think I would have to explicitly include things that take up less than a percent of a percent of your life.

Those people didn't "never win" did they?

Depends on the opportunity cost.

If they could have much better results putting that energy to another use, then, yes, simplistically we can say that they are idiots.

Totally worth it. They'll be able to afford that gold-plated coffin they always wanted.

Often it's the journey, not the destination, that holds the most fulfillment.

Winning isn't strictly about money.

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