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Comment by surrTurr | Hacker News Reader

On the point of success and the rich believing it is just luck whilst the working-class beliefs it's hard work: Maybe both is true. Becoming successful in working class jobs often *does* require hard work, whilst becoming successful in upper-class jobs depends more on other factors such as luck. For example, to become a great construction worker, you need physical strength, stamina, and a strong work ethic, as the job involves long hours of manual labour. On the other hand, landing a high-paying job in finance or tech might depend more on being in the right place at the right time, networking, having access to resources and opportunities etc.

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My experience is usually the opposite to be honest. When I look on any forum or social network dedicated to an art form/creative form, it's usually the rich and successful saying how it's all about skill and how their hard work got them there, while it's the poorer, unsuccessful folks talking about luck.

This fits very well with the idea of a self serving bias, where people take credit for their successes and pass off their failures as the fault of external influences:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias

Which makes sense to me. If you're successful, it must feel horrible to think about how you might not deserve your current status, and how so many equally talented/hard working folks failed miserably in similar circumstances. While if you're unsuccessful, thinking that maybe you just suck and deserve your situation must feel equally miserable.

A high-paying job in finance or tech is not what rich means.

Rich means ownership and rent-seeking. It means dominating some part of your culture to the extent that you can force your will and desires on significant numbers of people - often against their personal interests.

One of the best examples is the health insurance industry, which bankrupts half a million Americans every year - usually people who have been paying insurance premiums for decades, but their money is somehow channelled to shareholders instead of providing care when they need it.

If you're not profiting from an operation like this on a mass scale, you're not truly rich.

> A high-paying job in finance or tech is not what rich means.

> Rich means ownership and rent-seeking.

Huh? No it doesn't.

Rich is a subjective term but your definition of it is strangely unusual and specific.

most likely because they resemble the more general understanding of the word rich.

Maybe on Hacker News, but not in the real world.

The belief that success is mostly luck, while sometimes true, is useless when it comes to making decisions. There is little that I can do to increase my luck, while there is plenty that can be done to work toward a goal. One who has benefited from luck or can afford to buy their own luck, can state this and mean it. Anyone else who holds that position assures their own failure.

Luck is definitely something you can increase to a point.

Luck is basically seemingly random events going your way in a positive way. If you do more things, you’ll have more interactions and more chances those go well.

Luck is just probability. You have to keep playing the board for it to work. Too many people think luck is just sitting and doing nothing and hoping it turns out well.

I think this is the right view of success. Great success requires both talent and hard work.

It’s most obvious in domains like sports and music. I noticed that in my teens by watching Michael Jordan. He was great because he had a body seemingly made for basketball and spent the most time practicing.

How is it any different in medicine, tech, investing, engineering, business, etc.?

The talents are mental, so they are harder to see. The required combination of luck and hard work are the same.

A better world would be one where the successful recognize this and are grateful to be the recipients of life’s lottery winnings. They would try to help the unlucky rather than lord their success over them.

The way I like to think about it is: success requires 1) being in a position to be presented with windows of opportunity and 2) being willing to commit to working towards taking full advantage of those windows when they are presented.

It’s luck, and then it’s work to take advantage of the luck. Except in extreme instances on either end of the spectrum, it’s always both.

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