7 ms·

Past a certain point, skill doesn't contribute to the magnitude of success and it becomes all luck. There are plenty of smart people on earth, but there can onl

by jocaal 1y ago

Past a certain point, skill doesn't contribute to the magnitude of success and it becomes all luck. There are plenty of smart people on earth, but there can only be 1 founder of facebook.

vovavili 1y ago
Plenty of smart people prefer not to try their luck, though. A smart but risk-avoidant person will never be the one to create Facebook either.
- estearum 1y ago
  Plenty of them do try and fail, and then one succeeds, and it doesn't mean that person is intrinsically smarter/wiser/better/etc than the others. There are far, far more external factors on a business's success than internal ones, especially early on.
  - skeezyboy 1y ago
    for instance if that social network film by david fincher hadnt come out, would we have even heard of this mark guy?
    - dylan604 1y ago
      But then we wouldn't have had that great soundtrack from Trent and Atticus
- dgfitz 1y ago
  What risk was there in creating facebook? I don't see it. Dude makes a website in his dorm room and I guess eventually accepts free money he is not obligated to pay back. What risk?
  - CamperBob2 1y ago
    Once you go deep enough into a personal passion project like that, you run a serious risk of flunking out of school. For most people that feels like a big deal. And for those of us with fewer alternatives in life, it's usually enough to keep us on the straight and narrow path. People from wealthy backgrounds often have less fear of failure, which is a big reason why success disproportionately favors that clique. But frankly, most people in that position are more likely to abuse it or ignore it than to take advantage of it. For people like Zuckerberg and Dell and Gates, the easiest thing to do would have been to slack off, chill out, play their expected role and coast through life... just like most of their peers did.
miki123211 1y ago
I view success as the product of three factors, luck, skill and hard work. If any of these is 0, you fail, regardless of how high the other two are. Extraordinary success needs all three to be extremely high.
- benterix 1y ago
  Or you can just have rich parents and do nothing, and still be considered successful. What you say only applies to people who start from zero, and even then I'd call luck the dominant factor (based on observing my skillful and hardworking but not really successful friends).
- whodidntante 1y ago
  There is another dimension, which is mostly but not fully characterized as perseverance, but many times with an added dose of ruthlessness Microsoft, Facebook, Uber, google and many others all had strong doses of ruthlessness
  - woooooo 1y ago
    Metaverse and this AI turnaround are characterized by the LACK of perseverance, though. They remind me of the time I bought a guitar and played it for three months.
    - ghurtado 1y ago
      > They remind me of the time I bought a guitar and played it for three months. This is now my favorite way of describing fleeting hype-tech.
    - throwway120385 1y ago
      When you put the guitar down after three months it's one thing, but when you reverse course on an entire line of development in a way that might affect hundreds or thousands of employees it's a failure of integrity.
      - 1y ago

by jocaal 1y ago

Past a certain point, skill doesn't contribute to the magnitude of success and it becomes all luck. There are plenty of smart people on earth, but there can only be 1 founder of facebook.

vovavili 1y ago

Plenty of smart people prefer not to try their luck, though. A smart but risk-avoidant person will never be the one to create Facebook either.

estearum 1y ago
Plenty of them do try and fail, and then one succeeds, and it doesn't mean that person is intrinsically smarter/wiser/better/etc than the others. There are far, far more external factors on a business's success than internal ones, especially early on.
- skeezyboy 1y ago
  for instance if that social network film by david fincher hadnt come out, would we have even heard of this mark guy?
  - dylan604 1y ago
    But then we wouldn't have had that great soundtrack from Trent and Atticus
dgfitz 1y ago
What risk was there in creating facebook? I don't see it. Dude makes a website in his dorm room and I guess eventually accepts free money he is not obligated to pay back. What risk?
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  Once you go deep enough into a personal passion project like that, you run a serious risk of flunking out of school. For most people that feels like a big deal. And for those of us with fewer alternatives in life, it's usually enough to keep us on the straight and narrow path. People from wealthy backgrounds often have less fear of failure, which is a big reason why success disproportionately favors that clique. But frankly, most people in that position are more likely to abuse it or ignore it than to take advantage of it. For people like Zuckerberg and Dell and Gates, the easiest thing to do would have been to slack off, chill out, play their expected role and coast through life... just like most of their peers did.

miki123211 1y ago

I view success as the product of three factors, luck, skill and hard work. If any of these is 0, you fail, regardless of how high the other two are. Extraordinary success needs all three to be extremely high.

benterix 1y ago
Or you can just have rich parents and do nothing, and still be considered successful. What you say only applies to people who start from zero, and even then I'd call luck the dominant factor (based on observing my skillful and hardworking but not really successful friends).
whodidntante 1y ago
There is another dimension, which is mostly but not fully characterized as perseverance, but many times with an added dose of ruthlessness Microsoft, Facebook, Uber, google and many others all had strong doses of ruthlessness
- woooooo 1y ago
  Metaverse and this AI turnaround are characterized by the LACK of perseverance, though. They remind me of the time I bought a guitar and played it for three months.
  - ghurtado 1y ago
    > They remind me of the time I bought a guitar and played it for three months. This is now my favorite way of describing fleeting hype-tech.
  - throwway120385 1y ago
    When you put the guitar down after three months it's one thing, but when you reverse course on an entire line of development in a way that might affect hundreds or thousands of employees it's a failure of integrity.
    - 1y ago