Luck = D * T, where D is doing and T is telling others. | Hacker News Reader

Luck = D * T, where D is doing and T is telling others.

codusoperandi.com

54 pointspajju14 comments

I think a big missing factor is the field of endeavor, let's call it B for background, which is the amount of money/interest/activity floating around in the area you're doing things in. The more there is, the more likely you'll profit from doing even fairly random, even mediocre, things in the area. Plenty of people have gotten rich from mediocre-to-bad tech stuff (and plenty more earn an OK living doing an outright terrible job of coding); your chances of getting rich from not-great tech stuff are probably actually higher than your chances of getting rich from even really good music, say.

Or as they say in business school, picking your market is more important than what you do in the market. I don't particularly like that way of looking at it (I prefer people who picked an area because they're passionate about it, not because they saw the most money in it), but I think the 'B' factor can't really be overlooked; your odds are much better if the pie is big and money is falling from skies, than if you're fighting to get pieces of a small pie.

In fact, from a pure monetary-success angle, it may be better to pick a big-pie field that you're mediocre at, than a small-pie field where you'd be in the 90th percentile, depending on how much bigger the pie is. Do stuff in the vicinity of money, and you have a decent chance of some of it rubbing off on you...

I'd say that you're talking about a different measure of "return". You could get very lucky and become the world's foremost bag pipes player, but you probably don't have the likelihood of returns than your average real estate hustler.

Luck is probably something closer to the OP's equation. Though you could be right in that certain fields may have a lot more people willing to help you out - perhaps cleantech people are all about making the world a better place, they make more intros, etc.

It sounded more like the former than the latter though.

L =0. when D =0 and even when T is Large.

L =0. when T =0 even when D is Large.

If you actually do work hard and create something of value, but don't do a very good job of telling the world about your passionate work, then you're going to be ignored and relegated to obscurity.

Really? Care to give an example on the second one? Sounds like a lot of hand-waving to me.

Obviously, if no one finds out about what you did, no one will know about you. If you're doing something truly extraordinary an old diary, some notes in the margin, or just visible side-effects are enough.

This kind of over-simplification doesn't say much at all. If you're finding the cure for death people will find out eventually, and if you're someone who accidentally got famous (catastrophe survivors, some TV-personalities) you don't have to do anything to get lucky.

EDIT: Replace cure for death with say - trading strategy that makes you insanely rich, or some software which helps you do x much faster than anyone else, or anything really which carries the original signal forward. It was just an extreme (and silly) illustrative example.

People find out because cure for death is D at infinite. Most of the time it isn't. So a reasonable D needs a decent T to make a viable L.

Luck is an attribute that comes into picture in various forms.

Life Saving, accidentally got famous, catastrophe survivors -

Which I feel is the Karma factor. Isn't it the doing factor(D)? Doing is spreading good, consciousness and awakening. Karma is accumulated Points from your past births + Present life deeds also plays its part.

So D is the karma you've got inside from all your births(Birth1 + Birth2 + ... + Birth7).

D=100 * T=0 = 0

D=100 * T=1 = 100

D=100 * T=3 = 300

T=100 * D=0 = 0

T=100 * D=1 = 100

T=100 * D=3 = 300

I am almost positive most people who will give you money (who are smart; people who do their research) will prefer you're at D=100.

If you have a prototype and need more money then sure, you can have a higher T, but you still should be able to be doing work while you wait; Likely why many smart investors want the founder(s) to be the engineering team so they're not reliant on money to get things done.

Except if you tell people you're going to do something you're less likely to do it since your brain can trick itself into feeling the same happy feelings it would feel if you actually did it... I'm not convinced the equation holds.

Reminds me of this visualization of a similar concept: http://joeyroth.com/poster/

I would only add that Luck Surface Area does not equate to Luck itself. You can buy half the tickets in the Lotto and still lose.

Take D as the karma factor. Isn't it the doing factor(D)? Doing is spreading goodness, getting more conscious and ultimately awakening. Simple - Karma is accumulated Points from your past births + Present life deeds also plays its part.

So D is the karma you've got inside from all your births(Birth1 + Birth2 + ... + Birth7).

I don't think redefining established terms like doing stuff in order to suit your argument is going to get you much karma here on HN.

Luck is an attribute that comes into picture in various forms. See the meaning of karma.

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm

karma http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm

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