This article isn’t wrong, but it lacks a sense of cost effectiveness or trade-offs. Lottery tickets also increase your “surface area“ but they are transparently more expensive than they’re worth. Reasonable people can debate whether “build a reputation” or the other vague things this article advocates have positive or negative expected value, but this doesn’t really add to the conversation.
Lottery tickets wouldn't increase your luck surface area, they just would move it (and probably make it a bit smaller).
EG: I spent $X on lottery tickets and missed out on having $X more in an investment that did well or having the free cash to sign up for Y class where more "luck" happens.
I think honestly the biggest component to "luck" in the real sense is getting yourself out there in the world so that you can force multiply with other people. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and so the more people you have around you that share your same goals and values means you have a better chance of making something happen.
> I spent $X on lottery tickets and missed out on having $X more in an investment that did well or having the free cash to sign up for Y class where more "luck" happens.
Except the lottery is so cheap that there isn't really a competition for the couple of bucks it costs. Like, you take that $2 and put it into the market. Maybe it turns into $10, and you buy yourself lunch.
Yea except the market can never return the results of a lotto ticket. If I buy $2 worth of equity there is no world that turns into $100M but that’s possible with powerball tickets.
If you follow that logic every day and end up buying 1,000 tickets you are out $2,000 and you don't win powerball. Market results routinely outperform lottery tickets.
Not what I’m saying and I’m not saying you should buy lottery tickets as an investment.
The best-case scenario on $2 in lotto tickets is 100M. (Or whatever the jackpot is). Announced a few days after purchase. The worst case is 0. Announced a few days after purchase.
Best case scenario for equity is… 2x? 5x? 20 years later? Worst case is 0, not time bound.
The potential return per dollar for a $2 spent is better in lottery. The actual return when accounting for likelihood is different. $2 in the market will never make you a millionaire. But there is a non-zero chance in the lottery. It’s a very low chance the ticket isn’t worth $0 but it’s a chance that’s greater than 0.
Nothing. Maybe buy a lotto ticket every few months if you have a couple spare dollars floating around?
I’m simply trying to say that that the upside of lotto tickets are way higher than many other activities. It’s almost certainly a bad “investment” strategy. But if you only have $2 then you’re not going to improve your life in the stock market under any conditions but with “luck” a lotto ticket can improve your life.
I'm not sure lottery tickets increase your luck surface area. Its exchanging a sure loss in exchange for the remote possibility of a big win. The expected gain is negative. You pay 5 dollars for a lottery ticket (or whatever they cost these days), and that 5 dollars out of your pocket is an opportunity cost. Or let's put it this way:
Imagine that you drive your car for work, and the cost of being unable to repair your car is your job, maybe your house. Now, the chance on any given day that your car breaks down might be, say, 0.1%. Let's say a car repair costs $2000, and let's say you earn $100 in excess of expenses each day, and you have a choice of spending that $100 on 20 lottery tickets, or saving it for the day when your car breaks down. Without going through the tedious exercise of doing the math, it should be plain from common sense that buying lottery tickets--while it increases your luck surface area for winning the lottery--it also increases the probability that you will lose your job and your house...
I think what I really was trying to say is that you can increase your luck surface in one area at the expense of decreasing your luck surface in another, e.g. by not being "lucky" enough to have sufficient funds to recover from a jam like a car break down. Like, just saving money for a rainy day fits the bill for increasing your luck surface.
Lotto tickets increase your luck surface area at an (obviously) unattractive expense. For some people doing some of these activities may also increase their surface area at an unattractive expense.
every point in this article is just a fancy way of saying you should network and build connections. "Building a reputation" is just a bigger form of networking
I agree, I like the general premise of the article but it feels like it should a hell of a lot longer and more nuanced. Perhaps assigning a value to actions that increase the “surface area” and making it more of a “pick your own path” formula
> Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Not every opportunity is an open door nor window. Those who can seize the opportunity create their own luck.
Newton said that whatever service he had rendered to humanity was not owing to any extraordinary sagacity he possessed, but solely to industry and patient thought. He wrote "Principia" with great care, and his great love of accuracy appears in all of his works.
In other words, Newton was prepared and took great care everyday to be accurate in the opportunity presented. It seems people call this "luck" like the article, but I think that's the opposite of the definition.
> success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.
> 1. Blind luck: This is what most people mean when they talk about luck. Where you were born, who your parents are, winning a lottery… Totally random.
> 2. whatever
> 3. whatever
> 4. nonsense
Level 1 has an outsized influence insofar as: (a) it has significantly more impact than all of the others combined, and (b) it's compounding since it also influences one's ability to execute on #2 and #3 (#4 doesn't exist/make sense).
Don't get me wrong, #2 and #3 are worth pursuing if you can. But the tone of the article strongly downplays the impact of #1 which I think is net harmful.
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Speaking of the impact of #1, the article is also broadly about individualistic pursuit of "luck", rather than any consideration of how the impact of #1 could be mitigated in the broader context. This is a bit off-topic I guess, but seems worth mentioning when thinking about the net benefit/harm of an article from an ethical perspective.
Basically, bullet point #1 - ignored in the subsequent post content - is the elephant in the room here.
I like to tell people about how I worked hard to become a software engineer without a degree. But what I don’t normally mention is I lived in a house we owned outright (very low expenses), my workplace was down a developer at a small startup so my boss gave me coding tasks. At some point I got a random email from someone in my city asking me to do contract work. I’d randomly posted my resume on a job site months before (which has not happened since, in retrospect it was very strange). I also had a friend who was a dev, who coached me on how much money to ask for.
This allowed me to save up enough money to quit my current job, spend a few months really learning to code, and start a new career.
I could say all that stuff was just good thinking on my part but the contracting thing especially in retrospect is the dumbest of luck.
You can't affect the luck from point #1, it's completely random. The other forms of luck can be affected by an individual. Perhaps that's why the author doesn't emphasize random luck.
I really don't like how many people talk about "luck". They are not really talking about the concept, they are using the "luck" word as la language figure of something else, and that's misleading to the reader's intelligence (writers that do that are like making the reader's imagination go drunk instead of leaving it more richly nurtured).
The categories the author is talking about are more about the creation of positive selected opportunities.
If you invest your efforts in maximizing the possibilities that good things stop being impossible to happen, then (due to Murphy's Law) they just might, and if you're there and catch them, most people will call that "luck".
I'm not very good at statistics but is it fair to say luck over someone's lifetime would fall into some kind of normal distribution? If you simplify extremely and model the good luck vs bad luck outcome as a coin toss (I think overall outcomes bias towards bad luck) some people are going to hit the bad luck outcome every time due to pure chance (all coin flips come up tails) whereas the bulk of people will have some mix of both good and bad outcomes.
So I think (ignoring all the flaws in this model) some people would be just more unlucky over their lifetime due to pure chance and that's what we mean by bad luck.
And if you travel, or migrate, or meet someone that brings a big positive (or negative) influence in you, you'll disrupt that normal distribution in one shot.
But what you said used in your favor means that if you "minimize the surface" of bad things being possible to happen, then you can only improve your life experience.
Taking seriously this line of thought would make you think from how Epigenetics influence your body at the cellular level, workout/nutrition to optimize the development of your genetic patrimony and who you spend your time with (social patrimony).
That's why, some times, fabricating "fresh start" moving to another place would be designing such a thing.
I am not sure if Jason Roberts was the first to use this phrase but here was his take on Luck Surface Area back in 2010. That was the first I personally heard of the term Luck Surface Area. I don't know that Jason's take is any more insightful than the linked article, but I feel like he deserved a call out as well on this topic.
not much content here, a lot of its suggestions will not work
Hard work brings luck: You work on something so much that you attract luck. You tweet 5,000 times and nothing happens. But the next tweet gets a like from a big account and goes viral; you get thousands of new followers. This type of luck finds you only because you’ve hustled your way to it.
lol nope. This is the Edison myth: try something many times and eventually you succeed. this only works if there was ever potential for success in the first place. often there isn't.
Interesting article. I feel it's a bit superficial in two ways though.
Others here have commented on the opportunity cost of the actions involved in increasing your "surface area". I agree.
The other thing that struck me as not taken into consideration, is that expanding your surface area (at least inasfar as those 5 points are concerned) potentially also attracts "bad luck" as much as it does "good luck". E.g. expanding your network indiscriminately also makes it more likely to attract predators; Each new person that hears about your work increases the chances of an unlucky event (think activist twittermob). Curiosity without experience may lead you down bankruptable rabbit holes. etc
I would agree with this thinking of luck surface area. An anecdote:
I was passively job searching a few years ago. Saw some colleague invite me to Indeed. Figured I'd sign up for an account, just in case. Doesn't hurt.
Ended up interviewing with Microsoft. Got the job.
Then got some congrats message from Indeed on receiving my offer through Indeed. Weird. The recruiter in question was someone I had never had any contact with. Probably cooking their numbers by claiming credit on Indeed for hires which were done via other means (in my case, linkedin/hiring social).
Well. Turns out Indeed was doing a promotion where if you get hired through Indeed, you get a free gift. Pretty decent one too, I forget the other options, but I picked the Playstation 4.
Getting a free PS4 for getting hired by MSFT is super dumb luck. Surface area - I signed up for Indeed, "Just in case, who knows?".
This actually reminds me of how I 'found' many of my jobs:
Hung out spending free time at a home computer store run by my family, mostly Atari 8-bit. Someone asked if I could program an Olivetti PC--I had no idea but said yes. I had worked on a Xerox CP/M machine with dBase II before. Turned out it was even better/easier than expected. Worked all summer computerizing immigration forms for the Italian priest's business and developing a liking for cappuccinos.
My first car, an Alfa Romeo 75 (aka Milano) broke down on the highway, and I bought a used Volvo 850. The guy noticed my engineering ring and asked if I was software dev, yes, and if I'd be interested in a one-off contract job, yes. He showed up at my door with a laptop all loaded with dev env and project requirements--add printing to a Windows app. Read the W32/GDI docs got it done same weekend. He offered me a job, which I used to pay off the car loan.
Spent way, way too many hours on a submission for a "Think you can code" contest which was obviously a hiring stunt. I wasn't interested in applying but curious if I could place and win a prize. I also subverted the rules, playing by my own 'speed at all costs rule'. I self-assessed that I'd come in 2nd, which I did winning an iPad. It wasn't even the fastest, but it was the fastest that passed all blind unit tests. Went out for drinks after picking up my prize and took the job that got offered (when sober).
Somehow got to talking on the phone to the CTO of a company that used Rails. I had no interest. But I went in to their office out of mere curiosity. Liked the team, office, etc, so I then interviewed with them and when the job I'd lined up and got accepted for fell through because of a company-wide freeze took this one. Got hooked on working for startups.
My lesson learned: be open to fun, unexpected, or otherwise off-the-beaten-path activities and whatever may follow.
Articles like these always seem to come from people that already have good luck.
As there is a high level of survivorship bias from these people, I'd prefer an article from someone who has actually changed their luck. Perhaps an article detailing how someone got ahead despite a run of ill timed bad luck.
Exactly, but you can open yourself to opportunities for positive outcomes. Example: ten fishing poles in the water versus one. Just about any event has a certain probability of occurring; although, it's often chocked up to "luck". You can model fishing expeditions at some place in the lake and have a general idea of what can happen; although, there will be outliers. Now--apply that to gaining traction on social media. Someone that posts 1,000 videos has a much higher chance of going viral than someone who posts one; however, quality, specificity of content (broad reach, etc) will dictate a lot of the outcome. All this said, once the inertia is established, the author's definition of "attracting luck" does apply (people come to you with opportunities). I think the problem here is calling it "luck" when it's really something different (creating opportunities for success).
The best way to increase your luck is to learn sales imo. And I'm not just talking about money.
What I've learnt is that you need to learn sales to be successful or lucky in just about any life's endeavour be it business, dating, kids, academics, etc. Hell you're even selling open source software if you think about it.
You're always selling something to someone - like selling yourself if you're on a date, goods when it's your business, etc.
You can be as hardworking as you want but unless you learn how to sell and close you're not getting lucky. Most successful people I've met or seen are just great salesman tbh and it's a wonder that most people look at selling with such derision (but selling doesn't have to be unethical).
I'm learning to sell everyday and I do have one or two books.. from the top of my head
1. Sell or be sold. People hate the author but regardless one thing i learned from this book is that you must beleive that what you're selling is the absolute best for your prospect and you're actually doing a service by recommending it to them. Then product can be your business you're selling to a customer, or yourself on a date, or a lesson to your kids but whatever it is you need to be fully convinced yourself that what you're offering is the best. Sometimes this means changing a few things about it but until you are convinced, others will seldom be.
2. Never split the difference. This is also a very good book with lots of different strategies about how using a cool dj voice, using a no instead of yes, etc. Some very practical tips you can use in negotiations and selling.
3. Shoe dogs or something by the founder of nike. Great book about how you break your comfort zone and learning to sell and how billionaires have the same problems as everyone else and how they solve it using leverage.
Definitely a lot of more books if you're interested that I've read recently that have helped me improve me to sell. But as each book will teach you the only real thing that can help you to sell is to just sell!
I did a skills exchange with a salesperson at my company- I taught him how to code, and he taught me how to sell. We’d meet up over coffee every week for a few hours. It was actually pretty fun!
> Imagine lucky events as random arrows flying around. They are like Eros’ arrows; you want to get hit.
> The best way to get hit by a random arrow is to increase the surface area of the target — in this case, your luck surface area.
The best practical advice I'd seen in this area is to 'be out there'. Because on a typical day the odds of a good thing happening to you from it outweighs the odds of bad things. Staying at home, or in some other comfort zone doesn't increase this surface area. You can call this schmoozing or whatever, but I think it goes further into arbitrary encounters and not being particularly directed but merely recognizing opportunities whenever/wherever they should happen to come up.
Yes... that sort of thing doesn't scale, meaning that a large percentage of the population can follow that advice and positive results.
Things like basic hygiene, getting an education, developing good work habits... those things scale, and in fact the entire society benefits when everyone is doing that.
But the vast majority of people will not "build a brand" of any note. And in fact that can't happen, unless the attention economy drastically changes. (Meaning that now everyone can have 10K robot followers on Twitter, and that is somehow useful... I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me.)
In general, it seems this article redefines what luck is at the higher levels, and conflates "luck" with "power" (social, political, economic, etc.).
I believe the utility of 10k robot followers in Twitter is that it fools Twitter into thinking you and your tweets are interesting things that should be shown to more people, and thus starts to get you human followers. Unless Twitter figures out you've been buying followers and bans you and/or the robot followers before you get to the point where you've got multiple tens of thousands of human followers.
I meant more that every single user of Twitter now gets 10K robot followers. Then we're back to square one (or worse) and it is hard to stand out again. The platform would likely collapse at that point.
The article rings true but it also glosses over the downside risks of brand building and making yourself a known figure generally. This was mostly upside in the past, but these days there’s a lot of downside. You have to always be disciplined, because you never know what thing you’ve said will be weaponized against you by the mob.
While the article's general principle is good (that it is possible to increase your luck), all the remedies are not necessarily good.
As you point out, a large brand can also increase the opportunity for bad luck, such as an unpredictable negative social media mob reaction.
The article's items #2 and #3 (hard work and extensive knowledge) create greater opportunities for luck by putting you in a position to find a 'lucky break' or to recognize a new insight that others miss in the same data because you know more.
Yet the author focuses all of the steps on item #4, "attracting luck", and focuses on basically marketing yourself.
This can indeed bring great benefits, but it fails to recognize the opportunity costs, and potential bad timing.
I'd say that there's a time to be digging deeper on #2 & #3, hard work, increasing knowledge, and making discoveries or producing innovations, and then a time to focus on marketing. It seems that focusing too early on #4 can both impair the progress on #2 & #3 at the wrong time, and potentially establish a widespread reputation too soon, as a lightweight. Might be better to come on the scene as a heavy hitter, and become known that way, rather than try to overcome premature first impressions.
