There are going to be some people who read this and assume she must have interviewed poorly, or have really bad grades or something. I read this and go “yep, luck is a huge factor in whether or not your hard work will pay off”.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work hard — you’re essentially playing the lottery otherwise. You also have to decide how much of an asshole you’re willing to be (hate to say it, but if you’re willing to behave without morals, your chances of making money go up in the short term). I’m personally not wired to behave like an asshole, so it’s been hard work and a few lucky breaks that could be parlayed into more opportunities that in turn paid off, sometimes handsomely.

Looking back over 25 years, I can point at exactly where and how I got lucky many times. I needed to be in position to take advantage of those lucky breaks, and I needed to make the most of them (I didn’t always succeed at that!), but some essentially stochastic event has almost always been straight-line connected to an eventual outcome.