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I’m conflicted on calling him “lucky”, and I don’t think you mean to discredit him, but yeah he’s had genetic and societal gifts but I’m sure his work ethic is

• e_i_pi_2 4y ago
  For a measured response - yes I agree, it's a combo of luck and effort, but the effort can't compensate for the luck. For my true response that probably isn't as popular - he may have an amazing work ethic but that's also just coming from how he was raised, so it's still luck, the same person born in a different environment wouldn't have done the same things - both nature and nurture are external forces
  • LoRaBlood 4y ago
    I don't think his work ethic comes from his upbringing - our parents didn't push us that hard and my work ethic is average. It may come from the fact that he found what he loves to do early in his career, it may come from my Dad's genes (his work ethic was pretty good), or a combo of both
  • navane 4y ago
    If he is halve the genes given to him, halve what his environment has given to him, does he even exist? Do any of us exist?
    • chii 4y ago
      Only if you conflate the meaning of your own existence with the achievements you make.
    • bruce343434 4y ago
      we exist as water in a river
  • WalterBright 4y ago
    Geez, I've been told I have an unfair advantage because I have a predilection for working hard. At what point should people stop making excuses and claiming to be a victim?
    • Frondo 4y ago
      What is the point of this? Who are these people who are making excuses and claiming to be victims -- and victims of what? If there is a grievance you're making, can you elaborate on that?
    • ask_b123 4y ago
      At all points. A predilection for making excuses is a disadvantage so you should excise it from your character/personality.
    • ForHackernews 4y ago
      You could just admit the just-world hypothesis is false and enjoy your good fortune. That would be the gracious thing to do. But yes, seething on message boards is another common response to finding out you're part of luckiest 0.01% of people in the history of mankind.
    • noir_lord 4y ago
      Wouldn’t worry about it much. If they want to claim that then let them, doesn’t hurt you or me. There are enough legitimate victims around, we don’t have a shortage alas.
    • rxhernandez 4y ago
      It's funny how you say you have a natural ability to do great things while simultaneously saying that people should stop making excuses and just gain your natural ability. And I'm not someone who is a stranger to hard work; most of my loved ones have complained with great sadness for years that I work way too hard. In my experience, most of us hard workers didn't spend years training ourselves to work hard; we just wake up, work hard, and wonder how the hell the past decade of our lives just slipped through our fingers without any meaningful memories besides work.
  • jacobr1 4y ago
    It matters where you set the achievement bar. Sure, if the goal is "internationally recognized expert," perhaps luck is a stronger factor. But if the goal is, "strong enough programmer to write a spell-check algorithm from first principles," then work-effort might very well compensate for a lack of advantages in upbringing or other "luck-factors."
    • rxhernandez 4y ago
      Yeah, if you completely ignore people who are born in destitute and corrupt countries. How is someone supposed to gain access to a computer when they can't even feed themselves?
      • l33t233372 4y ago
        And that’s not even to mention how lucky he is to not have been born 100 years ago! The point here is that going to such extremes isn’t really interesting.
        • rxhernandez 4y ago
          They are pretty interesting because it establishes limits from which you can work to understand the validity of your model (idk about you but that's how I was trained to create models in my physics degree). I mean, from there you can move on to similar cases where bad luck trumps any amount of ability. For example, what sucks about being impoverished? Not having good access to a computer, right? From there it's not hard to draw on other things (e.g. abuse, bad culture, poverty) that make having good computer access a huge challenge. It becomes pretty apparent that luck plays a huge factor in success. Pretty interesting to me.
          • l33t233372 4y ago
            It’s obvious, but uninteresting to consider the extent to which luck factors into success.
            • 4y ago
• thewataccount 4y ago
  > I’m conflicted on calling him “lucky”, and I don’t think you mean to discredit him, I don't think saying he was "lucky" is discrediting him - simply because there's many people who got 'lucky' but didn't push themselves to fully capitalize on it the way he did. Basically he's both "lucky" but also extremely driven and uses it to his fullest potential.
  • tejohnso 4y ago
    > Basically he's both "lucky" but also extremely driven and uses it to his fullest potential. Pretty typical for people who are at that level in their field. Terrence Tao and Michael Jordan both immediately come to mind.
• richardlblair 4y ago
  Luck is like 5% of any equation. He had the gift and he was disciplined enough to execute on it. That 5% luck probably got him an extra 10-20% further than anyone else. However, in a room with equally disciplined individuals you wouldn't be able to discern the lucky from the hard working.
  • anthonypasq 4y ago
    the hardworking are lucky to have been born with that personality trait.
  • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > He had the gift and he was disciplined enough to execute on it. What if your excecute in the wrong proffeshion, like you become a stock trader but you could have been a world-class developer? How does one even find out, most peoppe in the world neverbtry programming. Maybe you have a gilf for something that younneverbhad a chance to discover.
• jvanderbot 4y ago
  IMHO the proliferation of "lucky" does more harm than good. It's factually correct but bad policy to emphasize it if you want the most people to avoid learned helplessness. Some might be motivated knowing the only thing that separates them from greatness is luck, but more often I saw students feel defeated.
  • sdenton4 4y ago
    It's factually correct that free will is an illusion, but it's best not to say it out loud because people might start acting like it.
    • throwaway290 4y ago
      > factually correct that free will is an illusion No it's not, that is only your belief (or as I call it "delusion")
    • JoshCole 4y ago
      It is not factually correct that free will is an illusion. It is just a difficult subject to discuss. Why difficult? Discussion that is considered rational culturally descends from argument techniques rooted in Aristolean ideas about logic. However, as shown by Kurt Gödel formal systems break down under self-reference. Through Turing we see can see this type of thing starting to happen when two Turing Machines need to predict the output of each other. Through John Von Nuemann and Nash we can get a proof of non-determistic policy functions in multi-agent decision problems being optimal. So we find an analogous concept to free will and we find it justified in this abstract domain not on the basis of some wishy washy concept, but on the basis of analogical reasoning (logic) and causal outcome modeling (dynamic functions). So what do we reject to claim it is an illusion? Logic? Or causality?
      • yetihehe 4y ago
        > Why difficult? Because too many people have adverse emotional reactions to such discussions. > Discussion that is considered rational culturally Discussions about free will stop being rational very early. > So we find an analogous concept to free will Ah, this is where the problem starts.
• pasquinelli 4y ago
  > but I’m sure his work ethic is what makes him exceptional why?
• flangola7 4y ago
  Inherent motivational energy is a roll of the genetic/environment die just as much as every other trait like height or engineering intelligence capacity.
• oangemangut 4y ago
  everything in your sentence can be traced back to luck in some way. Genetic gifts I'm sure contribute to work ethic, but also the families, societies, you're born into. The teacher you met in 1st grade that encouraged you to keep trying etc. Luck is in everything IMO
• bloqs 4y ago
  While of course the choice to apply effort and enact effort exists, but being able to successfully do so, and to have he psychological directive to do so effectively, is largely based on personality, which is largely established by age six. (Conscientiousness - OCEAN)
• ookdatnog 4y ago
  You can be lucky and hardworking, and have both of these factors be individually necessary but insufficient contributors to your success. People get weirdly defensive about luck being a major factor in their success, but it always is. It doesn't mean you didn't work hard, it doesn't mean that your decisions didn't contribute to your success. It means that, if you were born a little bit less smart, you would have achieved less. And if you were born in North Korea or medieval Europe in the peasant underclass, you would probably have achieved nothing of note and may have died of the plague before reaching adulthood. I'd estimate that just the sheer luck to be born in a wealthy, free country without debilitating handicaps in the late 20th century or early 21st century already puts you in something like the top 1% lucky people in human history.
  • red1reaper 4y ago
    You can argue that being hardworking is a talent, and as such luck. Not everyone has the force of will to be hardworking some people are naturally lazy and some can put hard work without it feeling like hardwork and others can feel the hard work, but have the will to overcome it, etc. I say that success is 100% luck and of that 100% of luck, some of it can be composed of hardwork, as the ability to perform hard work is in itself, a part of luck.
• cainxinth 4y ago
  Perhaps his epic work ethic is partially the result of a genetic trait and/or the influence of good parenting at an early age… which would be pretty lucky for him.