If it's so easy, why haven't you done it?
If you need to be lucky in meeting the right people, you can increase your chances by spending your evenings in the your nearest financial district watering hole. We’ve easily established luck can be controlled for, which puts us back into skill territory.
What specifically must one luck out on? Have you tried?
Everyone one of us here has an unbroken line of lucky (lucky enough!) ancestors stretching back a billion years or so. Pretending it's not a thing is silly.
When you're born matters. Where you're born matters. Who you encounter matters. etc. etc. etc.
> What specifically must one luck out on? Have you tried?
I think perhaps we have different definitions of luck.
Sure, but that's not what's being asserted. I am not "permanently locked out" of megacorp CEO roles; I'm just vanishingly unlikely to get one.
There are lots of people who have enough singing/dancing skill to be a mega popstar like Taylor Swift. There just aren't enough slots.
Could I become the next Steve Jobs? Maybe! I'd have to get really lucky.
I did.
> It talks about CEOs in general, not just megacorp ones, even if it does use megacorp CEOs in the intro.
This does not accurately describe the article.
Vanishingly unlikely to get one if you try, or vanishingly unlikely to get one if you sit on your ass all day?
I assume you’re talking about the former and yet I don’t think you’ve thought this through. I think you’ve blindly attributed to luck what actually requires time, perseverance, grit, lack of morality. The only way to figure that out is for you to offer up your understanding of what one must luck out on?
Because they're a form of luck?
If you're born in the developed world, that's luck. If you're born to supportive parents, that's luck. If you're Steve Jobs and you wind up high school buddies with Woz in Mountain View, CA, that's luck. White? Luck. Male? Luck. Healthy? Luck. A light touching of psychopathy? Luck!
> Vanishingly unlikely to get one if you try, or vanishingly unlikely to get one if you sit on your ass all day?
Both.
> I think you’ve blindly attributed to luck what actually requires time, perseverance, grit, lack of morality.
There are many, many people who devote time, perserverance, and grit to their endeavours without becoming a "hugely expensive" CEO. Hence, luck. Is it the only thing? No. Is it a thing? Yes, absolutely.
Those people who devote time - do they devote time to becoming a hugely expensive CEO or just some “endeavours”?
I think we’re fundamentally disagreeing on whether or not lack of luck can be adequately compensated for by exerting more effort. I have not yet heard of a compelling argument for why that’s not the case.
Again, no one said they're requirements. Just significant factors. You don't have to be white, you don't have to be male, you don't have to be from the developed world… but you do have to have some substantially lucky breaks somewhere.
A quadriplegic orphan of the Gaza War might become the next Elon Musk. But the odds are stacked heavily against them.
I played every single day, and I played at different locations. I also made sure I performed my pre-ticket rituals which I learned from other lottery winners. Other people could have done the same. It’s absolutely a skill issue.
So what does that tell you?
It must be luck plus something else.
That is why I said “significant role”, not “the only requirement”, yes.
And what is typically done is you ignore it. It’s always there, it’s random, and it applies to all samples.
Same with luck and success. You can control luck, so you focus on what’s left.