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Comment by marklgr | Hacker News Reader

If only people could realize the insane role (good/bad) luck plays in life. I believe it is often a difference between American and European culture: the former very strongly promotes individual responsibility, so when you succeed it's all to your merits, and when you fail you can only blame yourself.

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Yes, but I think there's also something to be said for learning to swim in life's ocean of ups and downs, making the most of your situation. For me, a successful person is someone that knows how to swim, not someone that caught a once-in-a-lifetime tidal wave. Usually it isn't very glamorous, but it's what I personally aspire to.

Quite true, and it's also important to make the most of your breaks when you get some, or roll with the punches when you need to. So there definitely are skills to gain and efforts to make. You got to play the cards you are dealt, and you can play them well or not, but at the end of the day, on a short timespan as human life, the dominant factor remains luck, by far.

The key for me was to change my personal definition of success from winning the lottery to simply doing things well on a consistent basis.

> not someone that caught a once-in-a-lifetime tidal wave.

Those often celebrated in the media as whiz kids or geniuses often do just that.

In addition, even if you are a "legitimate" business/founder, there is still a massive amount of luck, way beyond your control. Imagine for example if Elon Musk had founded X.com slightly later that he did - probably wouldn't have the funds or track record to do Tesla and SpaceX due to the lack of exit opportunities with PayPal. Or if Paul Graham had founded ViaWeb slightly later, perhaps no YC.

At the very least I think Musk would have been a good engineer, and PG would be inspiring young people to try.

Most likely, and I think both would've been successful regardless. But their success and impact would've likely been greatly diminished if they were not in the right place and right time before the dotcom bubble popped.

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