http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-finds-y...
Yes, this guy got superbly lucky. He also put himself into a position where it was possible to get superbly lucky, and then capitalized on that luck as well as possible.
That reminds me of a story where a professional golfer took a year off for practicing, no tournaments or other distractions. After that, on his first tournament he started with hole-in-one.
A journalist asked him "surely that must have been luck? Nobody can reliably train a hole-in one", upon which the golfer answered "Yes, it was luck. But the more I train, the luckier I get".
I always loved this answer, because it contains a deep truth: must people who seem to be "lucky" really worked hard, and then had luck too. None of our rich programming idols seems lazy to me.
P.S. I have no idea if the story with the golfer actually happened, or if it's fiction; I can't remember any sources.
A big theme in his talk is how to engineer your luck.
You see luck here, I see something far more inspiring and saying just luck may undermine those, IMHO.
I've since read about all the popele who I find successful. Here's the conclusion I've come to.
1. They ship things.
2. They work on something everyday.
If you do those two things you will be successful.
It's human nature to pant simplified story's about how something came to be, but the reality is a lot of things have to go right to make a successful person. First off Don't get hit by a bus etc.
We could sit here and think of all the reasons why that isn't true. You need to not get hit by the bus, not be a moron, have lungs, etc. Obviously, if you get hit by the bus its game over and it doesn't matter. The same with all the above.
The point is that we know that successful people ship and work on things everyday. Maybe that's not enough to be a success, but it is the one thing they all have in common.
Let's imagine a world, where all you make is crap. If you shipped crap one of three things will happen. You will become prolific, as in your crap will be everywhere. Look at Shepard Fairy's "Obey Giant." There's nothing special about that, but when you're everywhere it's hard to ignore you.
Another option is that you actually improve. An awesome case study in this is go read iwillteachyoutoberich.com. You can tell from his first post to his posts today Ramit has really improved.
The last option of course is that you neither improve or become prolific and you suck at life in general. Hopefully, you can avoid this, but if you can't at least work on things you think are important and fun. Most people hate their jobs, so it's not google payout success, but it is personal success.
Take a slightly different narrative. J.K Rowling is richer than just about anyone that's going to write an advice book. She made something around 1 billion executing an idea she was amazed to see make 105k. Her first book was rejected by 12 publishing company's for over a year. So, do what you love and double down even when it's not working. (Notice how no pivot is needed nor is improvement.)
There is nothing magical about making money. People spend insane amounts of money on a wide range of things. All you need to do is find out how you can get a tiny slice of that. Sell a 300 million dolor boat to one person or 300 million dollar soda's and they are still a tiny fraction of a single years consumption. But, just 1% of those sales is plenty for most people to retire on.
JK sold entertainment and iwillteachyoutoberich sells a fantasy, they are vary different markets that need completely different approaches. And when you start to look at the approaches to gathering wealth you can start to look at the people who where not successful. And some times it really does just come down to luck. So, find a nitch whose risks and lifestyle agrees with you and have at it.
PS: Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Now, consider was it bad advice at the time? And would it have mattered if she had taken it? I mean the book was already being published, so there was no need to double down at the time.
Thanks for the great discussion!
Knowing and interacting with tons of different people is what creates luck.
Being good at something is what let's you capitalize on it.
You need to know a lot of people who are invested in you personally. That doesn't happen if the relationship is transaction(in an economic sense) based - ie "I'm only interested in talking to you if you can help/buy my product".
You need to go out and help people yourself and ask help from others.
You can ship on an e-mail you spent 12 hours researching to help x with their marketing efforts. Sending the e-mail was shipping.
They're too busy to tell you why they're successful.
I'm sorry to hear that but I think you might have a lot of insights that would help us up and coming entrepreneurs if your willing to share.
Something else is your actual calling. Maybe its helping entrepreneurs?
PS: I'm not trying to sound trite. I mean this sincerely.
35 is still young too, plenty of successful founders at 35, albeit less common then under 30.
This is actually the best comment of the whole thread.
It's just as dangerous to sit on hacker news or read about other people all day as it is to sit infront of the TV or play xbox all day.