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Comment by baddash | Hacker News Reader

If someone has been massively successful, that means they know how to be successful. It must be the case they have something of value to say. How can you make the argument they have nothing of value to say?

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First, I would argue that your statement is not true that successful people always or even generally or on the average know how to be successful. But even if it is true, because they are good at one thing (starting businesses) does not mean they have anything valuable to say, or that they can say it in a way that transfers value to others, or that they are good at anything else, really.

Anyway, you're attacking a premise I didn't put forward - I didn't say his advice was not valuable, I said I feel that way when presented with articles like these by wildly successful people.

Simple. Survivorship bias. HBS and other business journals have done many studies where they look at the key attributes of a successful entrepreneur and it's always the usual stuff like: hard work, persistence, willingness to take risks, etc. The problem is that if you surveyed the key attributes of UNsuccessful entrepreneurs you'd find the exact same attributes.

If somebody has been massively successful from nothing multiple times, it means they probably know how to be successful. If somebody has been massively successful once, it means there is a definite possibility that they know how to be successful, and also a definite possibility that they had connections and/or luck.

Or they had family with money and connections.

You’re getting downvoted because it’s almost always parents and their friends.

Pull like any tech big shot at random, their parents are rich and bought some part of their success. Gates’ folks had an IBM mainframe installed in his fucking high school.

Oh myGod, this kid Bill Gates is way ahead of the curve on computers.

Nearly every billionaire was born a millionaire.

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