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Hot take: Success in life is mostly due to luck (2023)

9 points by mgh2

by ColdStream

0 subcomment

That is what Bill gates once said. For all the success he had, he also acknowledged that there was a lot of luck involved as there were a lot of other companies and people that had better technology than Microsoft had but they didn't have the luck to be in the right place.
I had said that if it was just down to technical capabilities/potential and no luck involved, we would be running some form of Amiga systems on PowerPC chips running BeOS. I don't really believe that but it just to highlight that there is a lot that happens outside of pure merit.

by mgh2

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> However, the Sylvania offer is $1 dollar a month higher than the Ford offer. Chang calls Ford and asks if they’ll match the offer. But the person he speaks to is rude and dismissive, refusing to negotiate at all, and Chang gets so angry that he decides to take the Sylvania offer instead.
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/morris-chang-and-the-...

by rzzzwilson

1 subcomments

Getting the lucky break is only half of it. Recognizing a change as a lucky break and being able to take advantage of it is also important.

by emrah

0 subcomment

Without other factors, luck alone is useless but all other factors are not sufficient without luck

by sollawen

1 subcomments

When I was young, I always thought that success was due to my own efforts, while failure was the result of poor planning or wrong decisions.
But many years later, I realized that all successes and failures are actually determined by genetic factors.
Almost all of our decisions and choices are, in the end, determined by our genes. In other words, genes determine our choices, and our choices determine whether things will be successful or fail.