I thought it was a good question, and probably the only part of the article that's relevant to Hacker News. (FWIW I think it does matter and didn't like his answer)
(I don't know much about the comedy business, though...maybe there just aren't many people who put in as much time as Louis C.K.)
There are plenty of funny comedians who don't make it big (Eddie Pepitone comes to mind) and work hard, but you can't describe how to get lucky, all you can describe is how to not fuck up opportunity.
I'm curious to know why you feel that way.
I'd have preferred him to take a position: "I think I have a better way for the industry to work" or "Don't infer too much from my success, it's a red herring". Or he could just say that he's only focused on his brand and not the industry at large.
Louie's talent as a comedian is something he's built over many many years. He's obviously not the first, and definitely not the fastest to rise to critical acclaim ... so arguably, you could make the case that there's nothing special about what he's accomplished there ... just that he's currently very highly thought of in the comedy world.
What he's done is pair the timing of that success with a different business model for his personal brand than had previously been applied to the world of comedy - and he's done that with a technological solution that really anybody CAN replicate.
He booked venues that weren't beholden to large ticket companies giving him the freedom to record and resell his performance. He hired his own crew to record those shows. He hired people to build a website for $32,000 to distribute those shows, and he asked people to pay $5 instead of stealing them online. Then he used the success of that experiment as leverage for the deals he struck for his tour and with HBO because they wanted him more than he needed them.
Really anybody could have (and still can) do what he's done, but there's few short-cuts to the talent part. But I guess since I'm commenting here, I've "canceled my subscription to being a good person".