Hot take: Success in life is mostly due to luck

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The question of what's "luck" versus "not luck" depends on how far you expand your view. In a narrow view, someone who becomes rich through intelligence and hard work isn't rich due to luck. But intelligence is mostly something that people are born with, or not. If you're born with a 99.9th percentile IQ and become a millionaire by crushing it at a quantitative hedge fund , you really are lucky in a sense. You didn't earn your innate talent any more than a kid born to rich parents earned his family connections.

Even hard work is complicated, because some people naturally have a lot more energy than others.

Hard work & continuous effort creates avenues for luck/lucky scenarios to occur.

Personally found this in my early journey. I.e talking to someone who introduces me to a programme which introduces me to someone else = offer

You can't simply go about your day to day expecting that you will get lucky and have Schwarzman call you up, that's why networking is emphasised by every Tom Dick and Harry because it's the easiest way to get lucky and open new avenues

You can't get hit by the luck truck if you don't walk into the street.

it's luck on some level, yes, you need luck to get your foot in the door but come on bro you still need to execute. it's not like it's 100% luck in most cases or something.

The real question is when do we separate luck from merit. Radical views on luck may trace one's success to being born in the right period in history, having the right family, living in the right neighborhood, having the right teachers, being influenced by relatives to pursue unique paths, and so on. Based on this logic, 99.99% of one's success is luck. On the other side, a radical view on success is basically saying "if he can do it, so can you" without taking into account the luck factor in everybody's past.

To accommodate both perspectives, I'll completely cut the term of "luck" when speaking about someone's success. I think that anyone who attributes luck to someone's success doesn't get a fundamental point in competition and success: Specific professional life paths suit those that have the specific knowledge and background (including all the circumstances pointed out in the 1st paragraph). That doesn't mean that because someone out there didn't have the same background as certain people they're 100% doomed to fail in life, on the contrary, they could achieve success by focusing on those paths where their knowledge and background give them a competitive advantage compared to its peers.

The harder you work the luckier you will get in America

Have you ever read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell?

The harder you work the luckier you get

The harder you work the luckier you get

You're measuring success based on the world of things which is why the bottom 99.9% of people seem so impoverished for you. Even though these people are privileged I'm sure all the bankers know how difficult it is to actually do the work and make it to the top.

All the super rich and acclaimed people you hear about aren't actually that successful, they're constantly being subordinated by the world of service and of things. Ceos of major banks and hedge funds are still beholden to their shareholders; say something unsavory in the political climate and see how much power they will have left.

Most people on this forum are subordinated by things and the prestige that they represent. Dignity is equated to who has a nicer watch or house, and people of higher social status in their inner hearts don't find that a homeless man or even a McDonald's manager has the same dignity as them.

Wealth and prestige is also equated with success in this forum, though seeking wealth only in the material world and the world of objects is really impoverishment.

As the banker drives home in Mercedes at 2am, after editing a deck a client won't read, his world is bleaker than a minimum wage cashier, drinking Coors light with his buddies after the closing shift.

ddd1

By a function of there being many many hard working and smart people in the world, there will necessarily be billionaires that arise -- but most people won't ever have the right chain of circumstances to get there. If you ran 1000 simulations all of the guys I listed above, along with people like Bill Gates, etc., I bet close to 0% of the simulations would result in an outcome where they achieved the same success they have currently.

Is this really a hot take?

Every billionaire is a billionaire due to luck.  It's simply impossible to work hard enough in a vacuum to accumulate that kind of wealth.  Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos or someone worth "just" a single billion are not meaningfully smarter, harder working, or anything else than thousands if not millions of other people.  Yes, you can argue that someone could scrape and save and hustle their way to a few million of net worth from nothing , but that just isn't possible at higher levels of net worth.

Someone would have invented Facebook and someone would have built Amazon ; I'm not trying to say that those founders don't deserve their success, merely that it's luck that it was them and not someone else who broke through.  Mind you, we're starting to see the flip side of that with a lot of hyper wealthy people - Mark Zuckerberg seems a lot more like a lucky confluence of circumstances and not a visionary genius these days

OP out here conflating "success" with being a billionaire lol
What a brain-dead and tone-deaf take

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

I've always thought that luck impacted the magnitude of your success but hard work, merit, etc. impacts the direction. I'm sure all the guys you mentioned would have been successful and had great lives if they pursued different paths, just May have not been billionaires. Lotta stuff has to go right to be a billionaire.

The post also assumes that success = extreme monetary gain. Under that assumption, then yes luck would be a driving factor. However, if you define success as a well rounded life well lived (enough money to buy what you want, good and loving family, good friends, and career success/satisfaction) then I'd say hard work is the driving factor. You don't have to end up a lucky billionaire to have been a success.

Also while an interesting thought experiment, it's ultimately useless. If you assume that luck is the driving factor, then it is implied that it is out of your control and thus something you can't affect or worry about. So why waste the time? You can only control what you do and if you want to be successful, then the only option is to work hard regardless of any predicted outcome.
That being said, there are so many lucky opportunities to those who do work hard and are good people, that eventually you will get a "lucky" break.

"The harder I've worked, the luckier I've become."

Some good observations there.

Counterargument for me would be that a lot of these people are impressive when you hear them speak or learn about their decisions.  Buffett for example is every professor's favorite example of a lucky guy . . they love to walk through the "coin flip" theory on how simple math guarantees a Buffett-like track record to come along by random chance, concluding that there's no evidence of his genius.

Which I find deeply ironic considering the guy might be the all-time leader in terms of independent evidence of brilliance.  He has six hours of public Q&A every year for 40+ years, a half dozen biographies, countless interviews . . it's easy to see he's insanely bright, clear-headed and diligent without even looking at his numbers.

The other thing I'll say is that it's fine to understand the role of luck, but I've seen that morph into a defeatist attitude about what one can control.  As long as luck isn't 95% of life, there's enough within your control that it's worth competing and making sacrifices in pursuit of big goals. IMHO.

Hard work is usually necessary but never sufficient to become ultra wealthy.

Luck is always necessary and by itself occasionally sufficient to become ultra wealthy.

What if you were never born?

Everyone living has beat the odds just to take their first breath. And from a person's first breath to their very last, their life will be molded by both intentional action and luck.

Without luck, the sperm that became you would've lost the battle BUT if your parents never fucked, the sperm wouldn't've even had the chance to meet the egg.

The actions and choices we make in life set us up for the encounters with luck we experience. You cannot have one without the other.

People often look at a pivotal moment in a successful person's life and attribute that moment to luck. I disagree. I think that successful people would have found that moment one way or another.

Had Blankfein not been hired at that bank, he would have found another. Had it not been acquired by Goldman, he would have lateraled to Goldman, or some other firm, and rose up the ranks there.

Had Mark not founded Facebook, he would have founded something else a few years later. There were many social media apps founded before Facebook that failed. There were some founded after Facebook that succeeded. He succeeded not because of "timing" but because he was the one who knew what people would want and had to talent to deliver.

Had the Coatue founder not gotten lucky in the market or met Julian Robertson, he would have found another avenue into investing, or another field within finance, and done just as well.

Maybe these people wouldn't be billionaires today, but I think they would still be very, very wealthy, which is success enough. At the end of the day, talent is talent. Life is long, and talent will find opportunities along this long path no matter where they go.

I just never understood those that spend so much brain power on the Luck vs. Work/Skill debate. Just do everything you can do to put yourself in the best position possible and be grateful for wherever you end up. As another poster mentioned above, most of us are fortunate to be in the top percentiles of society just by where we were born.

I try to focus on the process vs. outcomes. As long as I know that I did everything in my power to maximize my potential, then I can live with that. I believe a lot of people bring up "Luck" as a way to cope for their lack of effort and achievements. Sure, you won't end up with a $50MM+ net worth without some luck on your side, but if you're in America I'm confident you can build a helluva life for yourself through sheer will and ambition.

And yes, I understand it's frustrating when the ultra-successful think they're the most hard-working, unique, and talented individuals who refuse to acknowledge any ounce of luck influenced their accomplishments. Those people are just insecure and feeding their own ego. The happiest and most chill people I know work hard, don't take life too seriously, have fun along the way, and remain gracious despite the outcomes.

The tricky thing about gauging success on luck vs. merit is one side will always reject the other. I've found the best (and easiest) thing to do is try your hardest to not stress too much over circumstances out of your control and instead, try to put yourself in the best situation with the decisions you currently face.

Answering "Where will I be in 5,10,20 years?" is much more difficult than "What is the best action in this moment?".

You can only be where your feet stand.

I agree with you philosophically, which is why I think it's important for those who are fortunate to give back to those who are less so. That being said, even if success in life is primarily luck, is there really much point ruing over either your "privilege" (if you're fortunate) or "bad breaks" (if you're not)? Let's say luck is 60% of success, but 40% is still controllable. I'd argue it's wrong to neglect this other 40%, regardless of your life's outcomes so far, especially since this 40% could still impact the magnitude of your success. Yes, guys like Bezos, Zuck, etc. were extremely fortunate to be in the circumstances they were in, but they also did a lot of things right be in that "lucky" position in the first place and to capitalize/seize the opportunity once it was there.

I'd argue that it's more important to focus on what you can control and have the wisdom to understand that not everything you do in life, be it fortune or famine, is due to your own actions. Have sympathy for those who are less fortunate than you and try to lift others up instead of tearing them down/seeing them as a threat. That's really all that's worth diverting your efforts toward in my opinion because that's all you can control anyway. It kind of reminds me of free will vs determinism debates - even if life is pre-determined, is it righteous or fulfilling to not even try? In my mind it isn't, so why even have the debate?

Link the article please

In a sense i would agree,

I have quite a few friends that themselves see their success are attributed mostly to luck. One pal i know who's now a CFO in a port & logistics company, his career snowballed when he was the only person who could speak english clearly so the company took him on a global bond issuance roadshow , and the MDs at the time went to become CEOs in various industry leaders in my country. And again, he got the CFO post just because they needed a competent enough person with exceptional english skills to entice foreign investors during ANOTHER capital raise.

He himself told me that he was the luckiest guy in the world, he's career are based on the situation of "right guy at the right time" and the right guy thing isn't even that special. Timing luck that he got is simply astonishing. But again, speaking english well is a form of "hard work" (well, having been able to afford top education helps a ton) and giving 100% of his success based on luck is simply a disservice to his own hard work, but we definitely can't ignore that his journey were much more easier than some of us that wasn't born into a wealthy family or having access to top quality education and mentoring which only attainable if you have enough wealth.

Or God? Or the Matrix?

There are no coincidences or luck by that matter.

This is the thing with freedom. You can believe what you want, but that doesn't make it a reality.

Unless, of course, referring to the first line, you are Neo in Matrix, or divine consciousness.

Yes they all got lucky, but the common denominator is they were all working hard enough to be in a position to benefit from fortunate circumstances. Someone said "the harder I work, the luckier I get!" and I'd agree.

Finance has literally filled up dozens of textbooks trying to differentiate between luck and skill - it's called alpha and beta lol. If you think about it finance could be one of the most karen fields out there cuz it shits itself over tryna prove to people their success was luck

Hardwork, Intelligence, and Connections all increase your chances but to be at the top .00001%, you need luck.

There are hundreds of no-name people who would smoke Bezos, Zuckerberg, Biden (lol) on academics and public persuasion.

There are plenty of books on the question of work vs luck- my favorite is Scott Adams' How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. He talks about how successful people like to attribute everything to hard work. They put in the hours, were smarter than everyone else, had a better strategy. Unsuccessful people like to attribute everything to luck: That guy was in the right place at the right time, had big name parents, got into the market at the right time, etc.

The reality is that success falls somewhere in the middle. You have the be the right person at the right place at the right time. The book focuses on working hard to increase your odds of success. If you stack a bunch of skills that might not be impressive on their own, you will build a skillset that, as a whole, makes you stand out. Skills like public speaking, accounting, marketing and design, dressing well, being acceptably decent at golf.. None are impressive or unique on their own, but as a whole you start to build a mosaic that increases your odds of finding success.

The piece I like to add to the puzzle is that you have to know when to get up from the table and go elsewhere to get dealt a new hand. This is the strategy I've used in my career- I look for roles that build my resume and build towards something, but if the progression isn't coming, I go elsewhere. I've studied many different career paths- a naysayer can look at other people's "big breaks" and call it luck and bemoan the fact that luck hasn't found them.. or you can go out and look for the luck. I was in an FLDP at in company/industry that didn't appreciate young talent. There were no young managers or directors because they would have no credibility. So I left for another industry where I learned a lot and built some new skills, but they also didn't have room to advance young talent. So I jumped again, and "got lucky". Found a place where I've been given a bunch of responsibility, and they have no fear of growing my title based on my results and not my age. I got pulled aside a few weeks back and told that I'm being groomed for a director promo in the next year or so.. Far ahead of my craziest estimates.

Luck? yes- but I think back to my coworkers at my first company who were always complaining about never getting promoted. Guess what? they are still there. They haven't looked to get dealt a new hand, they just stick with what they have. They don't look to add new skills and increase their luck. You have to think like an architect of your own reality- not a victim of it.

Arnold has a great take on this in his "I'm not a self made man" speech.  But, yes, life is mostly a result of luck, skill, and circumstance.

This is such a trash take. Almost all of the examples you listed are either people being persistent, or people taking chances/risks.

Luck definitely plays a role, but to say that all of success is attributed to luck is just a cope for those who are unwilling to work hard, be persistent and take risks.

Luck, circumstance, network, hard work and skill can all lead to success on their own, but when you can combine more than one (or better yet, all) that's when the real magic happens.

Success is where luck meets preparation

Success is where luck meets preparation

Success is where luck meets preparation

Success is where luck meets preparation

i believe you create your own luck. By being relentless and never giving up, something will eventually align in the stars to work in your favor. The problem is that most people quit when they are so close to the finish line that they never truly experience this.

The thing about all these people that seemingly get once in a lifetime opportunities, is that they were probably going to be extremely successful anyway. To be able to scale businesses or rise to the positions they did, they had to be great in many ways. Most people have extremely great opportunities that they just do not capitalize on. If you are constantly working hard and searching for these opportunities, when they pop up you do not fail to take them. I have met many people that have so many opportunities but because they are not looking to shoot as high as they can, they miss out. Some would say Jamie Diamon is lucky to be the ceo of JP Morgan , but even if it didnt work out, he would still likely be at the same level he is now or maybe even higher just somewhere else.

This is not to say that anyone can just go out and become a billionaire overnight, but if that is genuinely a goal that someone has and they are doing whatever it takes to achieve it, they will probably be a billionaire. Most people just do not have that desire though and are more likely to be complacent along the way or refuse to sacrifice anything else (understandably so)

The harder you try. The luckier you get.

Other comments are missing risk-seeking behavior. Very few people have become truly rich with rich averse behavior. And most people are risk averse (in many cases rightfully so). Hardwork + talent + risk-seeking + some degree of starting on 2nd base in many cases (family financials etc) + luck.

You need luck to be incredibly successful (like billionaire or dalaï lama level), but you don't need luck to be a successful person. (Millionaire or someone outstanding in your community level)

Also, even if luck is required, nearly every incredibly successful person shares the same traits of being hard working and persistent. Focus on what you can control and you won't regret it.

Josh Harris…

There are a lot of people out there waiting for something great to happen to them. Much fewer people take intentional steps to move forward