[HN Gopher] How to increase your luck surface area (2010)
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How to increase your luck surface area (2010)
Author : deadcoder0904
Score : 250 points
Date : 2021-01-30 13:09 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.codusoperandi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.codusoperandi.com)
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Given just how much _bad_ luck I 've had in my life, I'm not sure
| I want to increase my Luck Surface Area.
|
| Ha ha. I know, that's not what the blog post is talking about.
| Well, sort of. Obviously, more exposure also means more risk.
| Like, I never used to get publication scam spam until I got
| published.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| There is no such thing as being lucky. It is just a matter of
| perspective. Luck is what happens when people spontaneously feel
| grateful.
| OgAstorga wrote:
| Isn't a good hand in Texa's considered luck? Isn't being
| invited by M. Zuckerberg to help code a side project named
| thefacebook considered luck (whether or not you've accepted)?
| Invictus0 wrote:
| These are just circumstances that present themselves to you.
| They are no more or less lucky than waking up in the morning,
| seeing the sun shine, or having clean water to drink. It's a
| matter of perspective.
| freshpots wrote:
| Check this out, your opinion may change:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I (12:03)
| adnzzzzZ wrote:
| Check this out, your opinion may change:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw (54:01)
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| I think from your comment, you didn't the article
| sh490 wrote:
| By increasing the size of your exposure. Ideally, diversifying
| exposure to opportunities/people/circles/etc.
|
| This should be done concurrently with (if not as a result of)
| increasing quality and amount of your output. By the time you
| meet the 'right' person, are in the 'right circle', you'll have
| something to show. Otherwise, it's wasted opportunity, and hence
| wasted luck.
| hntrader wrote:
| That's what the article says:
|
| Luck = Doing * Telling
| bigbassroller wrote:
| I have come to a similar conclusion through the phrase "luck is
| opportunity meets preparation".
| yalogin wrote:
| This is only tangentially related to the article.
|
| I keep hearing a lot of "put effort into what you are passionate
| about". One thing I found is passion is also generated. It
| happened to be many times, I force myself to work and n something
| for some time and I automatically see the beauty/challenge in it
| and develop the motivation without the need to push. I want to
| hear other's opinions on it.
| pontifier wrote:
| This puts the onus on others. In my opinion the biggest
| contributors to luck are observation i.e. the ability to see
| opportunity, and willingness to execute on the opportunities you
| see.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Taleb talked about this with his recommendation to get exposure
| to randomness that has asymmetric upside, and is analogous to
| luck is preparedness meeting opportunity. What I like about the
| OP's model is it also explains the asymmetry of social media
| where people do very little at all and talk about is _a lot_
| because the kind of non-linear success we are aiming for is a
| function of exposure.
|
| When you have wealth of any kind, you naturally orient to getting
| exposure to opportunity for diversified parts of it, but when you
| have a scarcity view, your decisions are necessarily all/nothing,
| and it even becomes a class culture thing. It's circumstances,
| but also learned attitude.
|
| Related, I'm sympathetic to what's happening with GME and WSB, if
| a young persons net worth is four digits, it seems insane _not_
| to gamble it on options, as the housing bubble has cut off the
| last way for working people to get leverage. GME may mark the
| inflection point in the markets where young people realize it 's
| their best or even only opportunity for leverage, and meme stocks
| are going to be the new normal because the economy doesn't
| provide anything better to invest in for under $50k. (that is,
| unless remote work makes distant property viable to live in)
| stouset wrote:
| Your observation about young people with four-figure net worths
| thinking it's rational to gamble it all on options is pretty
| much this week's equivalent of those living paycheck-to-
| paycheck "investing" in the lottery.
|
| The bigger problem is that this is rarely just a one-time
| decision to gamble. And repeatedly doing this is statistically
| pretty certain to lose you significant amounts of money--
| particularly when compared to just investing in the market as a
| whole--over the long run. It's just another way that the poor
| are trapped in poverty, even though you can of course always
| find individual cases where someone got lucky and made
| millions.
|
| This is one of the reasons I think Robinhood is a
| _fundamentally_ an evil company. It's been pretty conclusively
| demonstrated that the more trades you make as a retail
| investor, the worse your returns. To wit: Fidelity did some
| internal research on their customers to see which cohort had
| the highest returns. The winning cohort? The dead. Dead people
| don't make trades, and so perform better than the living who
| do. I'd be willing to bet a _large_ sum of money that
| Robinhood's internal metrics conclusively prove that the net
| effect of their existence is a wealth transfer from the poor to
| the rich.
|
| The real Robin Hood-esque company in this whole thing is
| Vanguard, who have almost certainly done more than most any
| other company in this space to return profits from the market
| to customers of all wealth ranges.
| jcims wrote:
| >Your observation about young people with four-figure net
| worths thinking it's rational to gamble it all on options is
| pretty much this week's equivalent of those living paycheck-
| to-paycheck "investing" in the lottery.
|
| One difference here is the solidarity aspect of meme stocks
| vs lottery.
| conformist wrote:
| These are good points and the lottery analogy seems quite
| accurate. I think, there may be an additional macro-aspect to
| this: If you are a young person with a four-figure net worth,
| you should be able to leverage this to buy (non-financial)
| options that have a much higher expected payoff than hyped
| stock options. For example, being able to quit a job to apply
| for others, moving to another town, spending additional time
| and money on education or similar. These are all options that
| you haven't got without the four-figure net worth. The real
| tragedy is that these options seem to be becoming more
| expensive or scarcer. Many are still better than an iterated
| lottery, but the (perceived) decline in optionality may be
| worthy of some sympathy. (Completely agree on Vanguard.)
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| > Your observation about young people... equivalent of those
| living paycheck-to-paycheck "investing" in the lottery.
|
| You're so close to uncovering something here...! Why do you
| think so many people play the lottery?
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm sure there are many reasons. But many boil down to: I
| (rightly or wrongly) think a few lottery tickets don't
| really matter to my ability to eat/make rent/etc., it's fun
| to dream, and it's the only way I'll ever have even a
| remote chance to be "rich."
| dataflow wrote:
| > Your observation about young people with four-figure net
| worths thinking it's rational to gamble it all on options is
| pretty much this week's equivalent of those living paycheck-
| to-paycheck "investing" in the lottery.
|
| It's not--the lottery is _by design_ guaranteed to have
| negative expected returns. The stock market isn 't.
| graeme wrote:
| Stock trading has negative expected returns compared to buy
| and hold though.
| the_local_host wrote:
| > Your observation about young people with four-figure net
| worths thinking it's rational to gamble it all on options is
| pretty much this week's equivalent of those living paycheck-
| to-paycheck "investing" in the lottery.
|
| But when you "invest" in the lottery, you don't get to help
| blow up a hedge fund. I think many of the retail participants
| in the GME phenomenon find some entertainment value in what
| they're doing.
|
| That said, I do think Robinhood makes it too easy for people
| to put on positions that they simply don't understand. The
| fiasco with "1R0NYMAN" comes to mind.
| im3w1l wrote:
| So something I've been thinking about: Living people enter
| the market when they make money, and they do that in a
| correlated way (times of high employment). And they exit the
| market in a correlated way to spend on retirement or college
| or whatever. Entering and exiting when everyone else do means
| you get a bad price.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I agree with your points on trading frequency, but I still
| think Robinhood is good for people rather than bad.
|
| I think the alternative destination for a lot of that
| Robinhood money isn't "Vanguard VTSAX" but rather slightly
| positive lifestyle inflation/expenses.
|
| To the extent that's the case, all the gamification and
| reinforcement is creating a behavior that's better than the
| likely alternative. (Returns are not good if your total
| _lifetime_ investment trades are zero.)
| dehrmann wrote:
| > The real Robin Hood-esque company in this whole thing is
| Vanguard
|
| This.
|
| I do worry a bit that there's something I'm missing because
| Vanguard is a Boomer thing that's no longer relevant, but I
| suspect all the research is solid and Vanguard being
| shareholder-owned aligns interests. Robinhood is probably
| just clever marketing and gamification of stock and options
| trading.
| threedots wrote:
| No you're good. I'm a career hedge-fund/market guy and all
| of my investable assets (outside of my company and my
| house) are in vanguard trackers. I'd guess most of my
| friends who are professional investors are the same (except
| they likely have some investment in their own fund).
|
| That's not to say there aren't better investment options in
| the world but they aren't accessible to ordinary people
| (even quite rich ones).
| dehrmann wrote:
| > I'd guess most of my friends who are professional
| investors are the same
|
| I'm curious about this. Hedge fund guys make enough to be
| accredited investors, but they mostly don't invest in
| them? Are the minimums too high? Are the yields not that
| great? I know the 2010's weren't great years for hedge
| funds. I also halfway wonder if the _real_ product hedge
| funds sell is complex strategies to pension fund manages
| who think it 's hard to explain their job if they're just
| buying index funds.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Being a 4 digit net worth grad student in Europe, riding a
| few meme stocks just for a short-while has increased my
| 'wealth' and given me tremendous amount of financial freedom.
| I understand that the odds are against me, but really, the
| expectation even when accounting for variance, and adjusting
| for risk tolerance are a no brainer to me.
|
| I made >40% of my net worth in the first 2 weeks of January
| alone, and with GME I have multiplied my net worth by
| (>tenfold). Yes I understand that these are 'extraordinary
| times', but accounting for everything. I have literally
| nothing to lose. I can fast for a week if I need to, I can
| walk instead of taking the metro. Whatever. I am not going to
| lose a lifestyle that I never had and I never had a safety
| net to begin with because being a 4 digit net worth student
| doesn't give you any safety net.
|
| Keeping track of my bets even before getting into this, I was
| right more often than not, and I am aware of survivorship
| bias and confirmation bias. In the limit, it makes more sense
| to spend 4-5 hours per day learning about market analysis,
| observing trends close to me and making decisions about
| sectors/fields that I know about.
| tylerhou wrote:
| In the short term, when someone gains in the stock market,
| someone else loses. Because of "invisible" transaction fees
| that go to Wall Street, retail is losing on net. So in the
| bigger picture, small investors aren't winning, despite our
| insistence that we are. Some of us are winning. Most of us
| are losing. And the net result is that Wall Street is
| getting richer. That's not good.
| uyt wrote:
| Expected value (a straightforward sum of total money in
| the system) is the wrong way to look at it.
|
| His point is that the expected _utility_ of these gambles
| is still positive for people who have nothing.
| tylerhou wrote:
| Expected utility is positive implies that people have
| discontinuous utility functions wrt. money. That is,
| utility will jump significantly after reaching a certain
| net worth.
|
| Another explanation that is consistent with gambling
| behavior is that people have inaccurate _risk_ functions;
| that they overestimate positive upside and underestimate
| downside.
|
| I am not familiar with the economic literature. But I
| believe that there is more evidence to support the second
| hypothesis. Behavioral economics has showed that humans
| are notoriously unable to estimate risk accurately. I
| have not seen as much evidence that humans have
| discontinuous utility functions.
|
| Behavioral economics also tells us that humans are also
| terrible at estimating their actual utility functions. So
| I also don't trust the original poster who _claims_ that
| they have a discontinuous utility function. The only way
| to test that is to observe actual human behavior.
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| The obvious discontinuity is "never have to work". People
| talk about this all the time when they talk about this
| stuff.
| [deleted]
| darkerside wrote:
| The trouble is that, if it works, why wouldn't you try it
| again? You're not only a single data point, you are also a
| snapshot in time. Two months ago, you didn't have much.
| And, unless you truly decide to stop doing what you're
| doing, you are likely to have about the same two months
| from now.
| credit_guy wrote:
| My advice to you would be to have an exit plan. For
| example, set aside 20% of your assets in a savings account,
| maybe even some type of account where it's not that easy to
| cash out, to limit the temptation of dipping into it. Then,
| as your assets grow (if they do), at various thresholds,
| you set aside preset amounts of money. This way, if you
| "lose it all" one day, you don't get to "walk instead of
| taking the metro", you get to afford a down payment for a
| smaller apartment instead of a bigger one.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Why not go to the casino and bet your 4 digit net worth on
| black jack? You probably have similar or better odds of
| making money compared to meme stocks.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I wouldn't say so. After running some simulations and
| assuming a fair dealer, it makes more sense to follow
| r/wsb. Doing a sentiment analysis on WSB after you
| account for bots and spam generally outperforms the
| market.
| stouset wrote:
| Look, it's great that you managed to be one of the people
| who came out ahead in all of this.
|
| But while you personally have seen some success so far,
| it's important to recognize that _overall_ this is a
| transfer of wealth from people in your financial situation
| to the wealthy. The fact that this one situation is so
| incredibly newsworthy should be strong evidence of how
| unlikely such successes are in practice.
|
| Further, a lot of the people holding on to $GME right now
| _will_ be caught holding the bag once the selloff begins.
| Once the reversion happens, there won 't be buyers willing
| to take this rapidly-pluging asset at every price point
| along the way. Certainly some people will get out at sky-
| high prices, but the overwhelming majority will be left
| holding a $10 asset they purchased at $400+.
|
| > I made >40% of my network in the first 2 weeks of January
| alone...
|
| Only if you've sold. And if you haven't, I do genuinely
| hope that you're one of those who manages to get out in
| time. But even if you are, it's important to realize that
| the eventual winners of this scenario aren't going to be
| the Redditors holding on to $GME shares, but the wealthy
| short-sellers who manage to either predict the pop or
| simply have enough assets to hold on long enough for it to
| happen.
|
| > I have literally nothing to lose.
|
| No, you had 4 digits of net worth to lose. And while that
| might not seem like "much", it's quite literally not
| nothing. And while you've been fortunate to win on this
| play, the statistics are pretty clear that plays like this
| keep more poor people poor than make the poor rich.
|
| > Keeping track of my bets even before getting into this, I
| was right more often than not, and I am aware of
| survivorship bias and confirmation bias. In the limit, it
| makes more sense to spend 4-5 hours per day learning about
| market analysis, observing trends close to me and making
| decisions about sectors/fields that I know about.
|
| First off, compare your plays to overall market returns,
| not to net-zero. Your benchmark over the past five years
| should be something around +90% (about 14% YoY returns).
| Actually, you need to be a little better due to trading
| expenses and (in the U.S. at least) short-term capital
| gains tax raets vs. long-term gains.
|
| Second, it's astonishingly easy to be profitable when the
| overall market is having record returns. The trick is not
| losing your shirt when the market goes upside down, and
| everyone thinks that part is going to be much easier than
| it really is in practice.
|
| In sum, I genuinely wish you luck, but I'm sadly all too
| aware that the statistical reality is that spending 4-5
| hours per day learning about market analysis and making
| trades based on your findings is overwhelmingly more likely
| to leave you poorer than richer.
|
| You can find people who've become rich betting it all on
| black at the casino, but that money didn't come from the
| house. It's just redistributing funds from all of the other
| suckers at the table, while the casino takes home the real
| winnings.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Thank you for your concern, I appreciate it. Yes I have
| an exit strategy, and with the second semester starting
| again, I won't really have the time to deal with this all
| of this. I made enough to setup a system to run
| experiments and fund my research for a year or two
| without needing to bug professors or make commitments on
| topics that don't really interest me.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > But even if you are, it's important to realize that the
| eventual winners of this scenario aren't going to be the
| Redditors holding on to $GME shares, but the wealthy
| short-sellers who manage to either predict the pop or
| simply have enough assets to hold on long enough for it
| to happen.
|
| What the hell are you talking about? The short sellers
| are literally losing tens of billions of dollars, and I
| believe they are going to lose several times more within
| the next week.
|
| The short sellers are overleveraged right now, and unless
| they find some bullshit way to fuck everybody (people are
| switching away from RobinHood in droves) then they are
| going to not just lose more money, but go insolvent.
|
| I don't know what's going to happen, and rumors are
| Melvin is about to get a giant capital infusion, but it
| really seems like the short sellers are the ones that are
| fucked and believing otherwise is ignoring data and
| simply assuming nothing ever changes. The fact that
| they're doubling down is a sign of desperation, not
| strength. It's like saying Lehman Brothers can never lose
| money in 2008.
| stouset wrote:
| > What the hell are you talking about? The short sellers
| are literally losing tens of billions of dollars, and I
| believe they are going to lose several times more within
| the next week.
|
| Yes, Melvin is losing their shirts.
|
| But if you accept that the price _is_ going to go down,
| and sharply at that, then _somebody_ is going to make an
| absolute killing here from a short position when the
| price inevitably craters. And that amount will utterly
| dwarf the gains from WSB redditors, mostly coming at
| their expense.
|
| There's orders of magnitude more money to be made today
| shorting $GME at $400 than there was shorting it at $20.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > There's orders of magnitude more money to be made today
| shorting $GME at $400 than there was shorting it at $20.
|
| There's also orders of magnitude more money to be lost,
| because there's just more money on the table. At the end
| of the day it's a bet based on assumptions. A month ago
| everybody that was investing in GME was told the same
| thing by people that wanted to short it.
|
| The market can remain irrational longer than you can
| remain solvent.
| stouset wrote:
| > There's also orders of magnitude more money to be lost,
| because there's just more money on the table.
|
| And my point is that the losing side of this is
| inevitably going to be the majority of people long $GME.
|
| > The market can remain irrational longer than you can
| remain solvent.
|
| Billionaires can remain solvent longer than you can
| remain irrational.
|
| Again, Melvin is almost certain to lose their shirts on
| this. But there's many, many more hedge funds that are
| sharks circling the waters. And Melvin and WSB are _both_
| going to be their prey.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > Billionaires can remain solvent longer than you can
| remain irrational.
|
| Melvin Capital has a very real chance of going insolvent.
| Also have you heard of Lehman Brothers? Hell, just
| watching Cramer get upset is enough for me to realize the
| rich aren't happy with what's happening. It seems pretty
| obvious they're worried. Why else would they pay for ads
| claiming to have closed a position for which they
| supposedly no longer have an investment stake?
|
| > And my point is that the losing side of this is
| inevitably going to be the majority of people long $GME.
|
| I said the same thing about TSLA way back when. So did
| David Einhorn. I still believe TSLA is more than 10x
| overvalued, and people continue to get rich despite my
| "rational" obstinance.
|
| Also you're completely missing the point. Do you not even
| understand most of these people aren't trying to make
| money? If you don't understand that, then you don't even
| have a basis to start the conversation.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| > There's orders of magnitude more money to be made today
| shorting $GME at $400 than there was shorting it at $20.
|
| I have been running scenarios of this in my head over the
| previous days. This play would be to short while the
| squeeze is near closure and force the remaining shorts to
| purchase your stock. The problem with this play is that
| eventually you need to cover, albeit at much lower price,
| unless, of course, the bag holders i.e. remaining retail
| isn't willing to sell to you at a lower price, so you can
| never close. If anyone else attempts to short at the
| rebounded prices, you can close your position, but this
| becomes a perpetual game of hot potato. For this play to
| you work, you need to assume the retail will paper hand,
| but if WSB is any indication, WSB can, as they put it,
| stay retarded longer than you can stay solvent and if
| they don't paper hand at those prices, they won't give it
| to you that easy.
|
| The alternative play, is to make a deal with other firms
| where you rotate who owes the shares and you share the
| profits from shorting the top, but I suppose that
| constitutes market manipulation. If we were to assume
| that the market moves up and the profits can be
| reinvested and profit more than the interest, this play
| makes the most sense.
|
| These two plays assume that all the floating shares are
| held by WSB, and if that is true; the bag holders will be
| people willing to let the prices literally moon. Then the
| only solution would be to wait for GME to issue more
| shares. The most plausible case is that WSB will be the
| ones holding the shares when it eventually squeezes and
| the shorts need to cover since all others in retail would
| have already sold.
|
| This isn't a particularly good position for anyone to be
| in because no institution will be selling and nobody will
| be buying, so you will end up with a staring contest
| between you and WSB, and if the past few days are any
| indication, your only bet is your profits outweigh the
| interest.
|
| If you can imagine the actual play executing in a
| scenario where WSB doesn't hold you by the ..., please
| share, I am interested.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| >Taleb talked
|
| Only because I happen to just starting reading this 4 books
| [0-3] motohagiography (word-depipction-of-saints?), and until
| 2-3 weeks ago I am ashamed to say I didn't even know who that
| was:
|
| Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
|
| [0-3]: Antifragile, The Black Swan, Fooled By Randomness, The
| Bed of Procrustes
| motohagiography wrote:
| Same Taleb. I recommend reading his books back to front
| because he's clearly difficult to edit and starting at the
| end means you don't have to go through the process of
| listening to him sound his ideas out. Most non-fiction works
| that way. If you only read his "Bed of Procrustes," and a
| selection of his technical papers, you'd be both better off,
| and following most of his advice.
|
| A hagiography is a story that exalts the life of a saint. An
| "autohagiography," is what some writers call a shamelessly
| self-aggrandizing memoir. Motohagiography was a play on
| writing about motorcycles in a self-aggrandizing way, but
| could be extended to other technology. But thank you for
| giving it some thought!
| Jommi wrote:
| and each book just re-iterates the same things. Gets old
| fast.
| genuine_smiles wrote:
| What's better to invest in once you have 50k?
| punnerud wrote:
| I love how Reddit (and HN) enable fast sharing, fact checking
| of information and lifting ideas.
|
| When it comes to increase luck surface I think Clubhouse maybe
| will become one of the most important platforms.
|
| GME case seems to exploit the possibility for "short attack" by
| flipping the table into a infinite price increase, because the
| hedge funds accidentally created more fake shares that there is
| shares in existence and now have to by back.
|
| Short attack = Using the possibility brokers have to artificial
| creating fake shares to drive down the price, in combination
| with shorting stocks for earning money.
|
| More detailed explanation:
| https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/11442671-gerald-klein/309...
|
| The combination of Clubhouse and Reddit will probably be one of
| the most important "inventions" this decade. Where GME could
| wake up everyone?
| sgpl wrote:
| I'm actually not super bullish on clubhouse. I'm sure they'll
| find some success but to call it something that will become
| one of the most important platforms, I don't see it. And
| perhaps I'll be proven wrong in the next decade on this.
|
| I've recently started using twitter again (after initially
| using it in 2010/2011) and I feel that there's so much self
| promotion all the time disguised at knowledge sharing. It
| also seems like everyone (most people) have a podcast, a
| newsletter, a youtube channel, etc. I understand that on a
| surface level people are doing this to increase their
| 'surface area' but there's just too much and while I'm sure
| it does a some/a lot of good for the people putting it out
| there, most of it just seems like noise to me. So that's my
| reasoning to think that clubhouse won't really become as
| meaningful as you - it just adds more noise. Sure I can
| hangout in this room or listen to some folks talk about x/y/z
| topic, etc. but honestly I feel that after some time people
| will realize that their time could be better spent.
| YZF wrote:
| Not too sure about the "fact" side of things. But the
| Internet has created opportunities for all sorts of people to
| get together faster than ever for all sorts of things.
|
| You don't need >100% short interest for a shorted stock to go
| to infinity. A single share can do that. If I own all the
| shares, and you borrowed a single share and sold it back to
| me... well, good luck. Also these sort of attacks aren't
| really new. Short squeeze has happened before and various
| other similar ideas (attacking someone with leveraged
| positions or otherwise risky positions, including
| currencies). The interesting bit here is IMO the way these
| people, at least temporarily, acted together. Also the way
| the hedge funds couldn't grok that like they surely would if
| they were under attack from a more standard player.
| gwnwest21 wrote:
| Hedge Funds managers have infinite resources and are working
| with Data Firms to prevent this from getting out of control
| again. These firms will use AI to scout social media
| platforms chatter and report back in real time what stocks
| are gaining momentum with retail investors.
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-street-looks-for-
| ways...
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/04477ee8-0af2-4f0f-a331-298744489.
| ..
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| They also have bots posting shit encouraging people to sell
|
| Also, whats 'Infinite resources?'
| dehrmann wrote:
| > the economy doesn't provide anything better to invest in for
| under $50k
|
| What's wrong with index funds? Real estate isn't everything.
| fnimick wrote:
| I think the underlying assumption, which wasn't spelled out
| in the parent, is that any amount of money under $super-rich
| is similar amounts of worthless. If you genuinely believe
| that, then high-risk swings at a big payday make more logical
| sense than a low-risk gradual growth strategy.
|
| I've heard friends express this - if you don't have $1
| million +, you're just varying degrees of poor - so there's
| no point at gradual growth from 20k to 50k and etc when
| you're just as miserable. Might as well risk it all to try to
| get to the big time, since they don't see a reasonable path
| to growing gradually to anywhere worth living.
| tomfast wrote:
| Interesting comment.
|
| Would you explain a little more about what you mean by
| "diversified parts of it" in "you naturally orient to getting
| exposure to opportunity for diversified parts of it, but when
| you have a scarcity view, your decisions are necessarily
| all/nothing"?
| Nevermark wrote:
| I hate to say "Bitcoin" because of its high risk, short track
| record, volatility, faddish aura, etc, but:
|
| I believe it's filling a gap beyond being a better gold-like
| asset. Better gold = digitally portable, 24 hr liquidity,
| digital literate friendly, fixed cap, transactions (even with
| its limits), decentralized control, etc.
|
| But the solidly fixed cap is more profound than I think most
| people recognize. Potentially, once Bitcoin finds its "true"
| price, it will continue to grow in value in proportion to all
| wealth in the economy - over the long run. So it won't just be
| a hedge against downturns, but eventually a semi-stable way of
| sharing in overall increasing wealth in the economy.
|
| I don't know of another instrument that anyone can easily buy
| that might track (over the long run) with global wealth as
| apposed to particular entities or particular aspects of the
| economy.
|
| So in that sense, anyone can participate in overall wealth
| growth. A very useful new tool!
|
| OF COURSE, this is SPECULATION on my part. But I think the idea
| of a total global wealth correlated asset is new and useful.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > fixed cap
|
| This makes it more like a collectable (say, baseball cards)
| than a currency. The number is capped and some will be lost.
| It has value as long as people are interested in it--scarcity
| does not imply value.
|
| It also has a short track record and could run into issues if
| miners collude, there's a DDoS attack, or someone with a lot
| of resources reverses transactions, hurting confidence in it.
| xyzelement wrote:
| An Israeli entrepreneur once introduced me to the idea of "the
| adjacent possible" - meaning, as you progress to "the next point"
| - the possibilities connected to that point are available to you.
|
| Somewhere else, I read the definition of "intelligence" as that
| which maximizes its future options.
|
| I think both things hit at the same idea of "surface area of
| luck". We think of luck as "a good opportunity you can take
| advantage of" - if you become someone who can take advantage of
| more opportunities, you become luckier.
|
| Some of the strategies that helped me (none of them are
| intentional):
|
| - Never passing up an opportunity to learn - whether new skill or
| new degree or new industry or a new personal challenge. As Steve
| Jobs said, sometimes you don't learn until later how the dots
| connect to what you eventually do.
|
| - Diversifying my experience. EG: 13~ years ago I was a "senior
| software developer." Since then, I had been a "development
| manager", a "product manager" and also for a time a "senior
| software developer" again. When I lost my job a few months ago, I
| was able to look at opportunities along all 3 of these job
| tracks, whereas if I had stayed in the single track, I'd have 1/3
| the options.
|
| - Ditto to industries. Until now, everything I did was in
| finance, so I intentionally found a role outside of finance,
| because I could always go back to it if I need to, but now I am
| proving to myself (and to my resume) that I can cross industries
| and work anywhere. That again increases. your surface area.
|
| - Have a diverse network, for example find a way to connect with
| young talented people where you are (first job, university)
| because they will disperse throughout the world and may do cool
| things and you may want to do those things with them, or they can
| just help you. It has been amazing how much people that I had
| barely connected with when we worked together were willing to
| help when I needed a referral/advice/whatever.
|
| - I'll call this one out separately: help people. Make time to
| mentor people, help them get jobs, put in a good word, whatever.
| Not everyone will "pay you back" but it doesn't matter, the
| reputation of "xyzelement's a good guy, he's generally helpful"
| means the world, especially as you become more senior.
|
| - Be the dumbest guy in the room. You grow more when being
| surrounded by those who can challenge you uncomfortably. Pick the
| right room. Comfort = death.
|
| - Troubleshoot your mind. Most of us are held back by stupid
| hangups. For example, most developers I know could be overall way
| more successful if they got over shyness/fear of public speaking.
| Figure out why you fear whatever you fear, and work to get over
| it. Imagine you didn't go for your dream job because it has some
| minute attribute that you pointlessly fear.
|
| - Check your language. If you find that "they" are responsible
| for what's happening to you, you have given away all your power.
| Figure out how "you" are responsible for where you and and what
| opportunities "you" have, and then own it and act.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| I'll stick with the proverbial Seneca: "Luck is what happens when
| preparation meets opportunity."
|
| Which is actually a generalization of the author's (relatively
| narrow) thesis where 'opportunity' depends primarily on the
| people that you meet and the 'preparation' is being passionate
| about something.
| king_magic wrote:
| A previous manager of mine told me that same quote years ago.
| It's never left me, and has always been a valuable way to look
| at the world.
| Closi wrote:
| I think this is roughly the same thesis with different words -
| preparation = doing and telling = creating opportunities.
| dade_ wrote:
| Except Seneca said this 2000 years ago and used far fewer
| words than this blog post.
| binbag wrote:
| Do things you're keen on? Deep.
| soared wrote:
| I really really dislike the idea that everything you do needs to
| be multiplied by networking. Not everything is entrepreneurship,
| not everyone is looking to meet people to accomplish x.
|
| I had hoped this article was something unique, but one paragraph
| in and it's more growth hacking nonsense.
| baxtr wrote:
| I just love the positive tone of this article. There is so much
| hope and positivism. I find it energizing.
| colanderman wrote:
| (2010). There's since been much discussion of this post here, and
| generalization to other aspects of life. E.g. I remember the
| example, if your goal is to date a model, start hanging out in
| places (cafes/bars) where models hang out.
| villasv wrote:
| > When you pour energy into a passion, you develop an expertise
| and an expertise of any kind is valuable
|
| I don't disagree with the overall spirit, but these Paul Graham
| aphorisms always turn me off.
|
| > To satisfy my mathematically oriented brain I've gone one step
| further and formalized the concept into the equation L = D * T,
| where L is luck, D is doing and T is telling.
|
| See? There's no passion here. It really isn't relevant to what is
| being discussed.
|
| Sure, passion is great. The more the better, the world is
| incredible when you're surrounded by it. Developers are fond of
| writing beautiful code, I am one of those too. But god damn, hold
| the inner coach and remember y'all are not psychologists. There
| is no reason to reduce the multitude of complex motivations to a
| single amorphous concept such as passion.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| It is funny, because D * T suggests that it can all be done
| with D with just a smidgin' of T, or that you can just do a lot
| of talking with just a smidgin' of D.
|
| But I guess I forgot about the Trump Presidency. So maybe D * T
| is the right model.
| choxi wrote:
| Product-market fit often has an element of luck, otherwise
| someone else would have found the opportunity already. So this is
| really good advice for anyone working on a startup, it's sort of
| another way of saying the classic YC advice that you should be
| "building things and talking to customers".
|
| I really like this mental model, one thing I've noticed about my
| failed startup attempts is that I did a lot of "doing" but not
| "telling".
| Closi wrote:
| I think that's a slightly different thesis - I think this one
| is more about 'lucky breaks' I.e. Microsoft selling its first
| basic compiler, vs finding your product market fit.
| postit wrote:
| I struggle a lot with advertising my work outside the company.
|
| I'm the kind of engineer that will get anything done regardless
| of the tech (or people/process) complexity, and I always end up
| watching someone else in the team going to conferences to present
| my work.
|
| Random reasons random, but mostly because my inner klout is way
| bigger than my outer persona.
| ghaff wrote:
| Do you not want to be the person presenting or are you being
| prevented from doing so for whatever reason. (And if the reason
| is something like presentation skills, do you care enough to do
| something about it?)
| kharak wrote:
| Being passionate about something for a long time (not just a
| couple of hours or weeks) seems to be a rare quality. Too bad for
| those who lack it, as it seems to be a requirement for success in
| everything. There are so many posts that try to tell you how to
| get the most out of your passion, I haven't seen one that
| explains the origin of passion or whether it is possible to
| become passionate.
| EGreg wrote:
| Here is a comment:
|
| Passion is a direct result of three things:
|
| 1. Awareness of a major problem that affects a lot of people
|
| 2. Becoming convinced of a certain solution that is currently
| not being implemented
|
| 3. Having your needs met for a long time, also known as
| financial freedom
|
| To the extent you find people with 1 and 3, you can recruit
| them with 2.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I think you are switching the order of things. Passion often
| comes after doing something for a long time. The trick is that
| you have to mindfully analyze what parts you enjoy about the
| thing, and how you can enjoy or tolerate the parts you don't
| like.
| mettamage wrote:
| What also isn't talked about:
|
| __Burnout and Passions__
|
| Here's a comparison: I once build a computer graphics engine in
| 2 weeks and a few years prior I played WoW for 2 weeks.
|
| In both cases I spent between 16 to 20 hours per day on it. I
| got ill, had an angry girlfriend (in the computer graphics
| timeline), and I did everything I wanted to do (it was done).
|
| __Passions and Interests__
|
| I have a genuine interest in security. Once every year I become
| super passionate about hacking/red teaming for 2 months. I'm
| like a cat in heat or something, but then with security. I play
| hackthebox, I follow security courses and clock 12 to 16 hours
| per day on it, 7 days per week. Converted to working days, that
| is around 5 months of working days.
|
| Yet, people mistake this as me having a passion for it. I can
| assure you, if the article is technical and I'm in the other 10
| months, I'd need to apply quite some self-control and
| discipline to be able to read it.
|
| __It's not always the subject__
|
| I have this weird trait. Whatever my friends are interested in,
| can become a passion of mine. One requirement: I need to do it
| with them. If I do and I'm having a positive interaction with
| my friend, then I'm passionate about it. However, I know it's
| not the subject, it's simply being with that friend. I figured
| it out by first noticing this in video games. It turns out I
| don't care about video games, I simply care playing them with
| friends. It turns out, it's true for all activities I have an
| interest in.
|
| __Passions and linking to other topics__
|
| I love imagining music. It's a compulsion I had since I was 4.
| Because of this, I quite like making music as well. However, I
| also like not being poor. I've seen quite a few poor musicians,
| so I've never focused too much on my music creation and I think
| that's quite a sad fact about my life.
|
| _But!_ It turns out, that (web) app development for things
| that I find cool or useful scratches exactly the same itch. So
| that means that passions are wider than your interest alone. It
| turns out that passions might be able to transfer to other
| passions if they have the same properties.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't feel passionate about (web) app
| development for corporations. This is mostly because a lot of
| the creative freedom isn't there, but when you make your own
| stuff it is there.
|
| ---
|
| My 2 cents.
| asimjalis wrote:
| I found your introspection valuable. I work as a presales
| engineer. When a customer has a problem and is stuck on
| something I become obsessed with it. But as soon as we have a
| fix or a workaround I lose interest in the area. This makes
| it hard to generalize the solution or publish it as a blog
| post.
| m463 wrote:
| "stop starting and start finishing"
|
| On the other hand, we have so little time here. Who's to say
| whether narrow and deep is always more rewarding than broad and
| shallow?
|
| You know, be mindful of doing the wrong thing well instead of
| the right thing poorly.
|
| So learn to forgive ourselves for pursuing things that fizzle
| out or lose our interest. Leave space to preserve passion to
| the benefit of our health and happiness. More interests might
| also mean more opportunities to align shared passions with
| others.
| pototo666 wrote:
| I haven't seen one that explains the origin of passion or
| whether it is possible to become passionate.
|
| ---
|
| As Bezos said, you can't choose your passion, your passion
| chooses you.
| rmelhem wrote:
| yep, i suddenly felt in love with music after my dad passed
| away - was in college studying materials engineering, and
| made a living out of music for 6 years (until the pandemics)
| OrbitRock wrote:
| Scott Alexander's the lottery of fascinations is a good read
| in this area: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/30/the-
| lottery-of-fascina...
| pototo666 wrote:
| Good read, thanks for sharing :).
|
| I will keep the article in case one day I want to persuade
| my child to love math.
| etrautmann wrote:
| I disagree - passion can emerge after you're much deeper into
| something. I liked building things but wasn't passionate
| about engineering until my last year in undergrad. It took
| 3-4 years of grinding away uncertainly until I had enough
| skill to make it really fun and interesting. That knowledge
| snowballs.
|
| Plenty of people are passionate about work which appears
| arcane. Few of them started with that.
| jlevers wrote:
| Cal Newport has a book that discusses this this called So
| Good They Can't Ignore You, which I found really
| interesting. His thesis is basically that the people who
| are most satisfied with their work are those who stuck with
| something until they got really good at it, regardless of
| whether it was the topic they were "most passionate" about
| (passion can be fickle, IMO).
| pototo666 wrote:
| Agree with what you said.
|
| Liking is also a great signal for passion. If we like
| something, we are more likely to do it for years and then
| have the passion. I don't think we can choose what we like.
|
| There are of couses cases when children are forced to do
| something early and later fall in love with it.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| > Being passionate about something for a long time ... seems to
| be a requirement for success in everything.
|
| There's a book that attempts to debunk this myth by making the
| case that generalists are typically more successful:
| https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Range
| mojoe wrote:
| There's a difference between being passionate about a
| skillset and passionate about a field. For instance, I can be
| passionate about renewable energy and still be a generalist
| in terms of my day-to-day work.
| analyst74 wrote:
| Opposite of passion is contentment, which is also very
| desirable for many.
|
| You just can't have both, because with a burning passion, comes
| a sense of imperfection and constant struggle to get better but
| never enough, or worse, fear of decay and irrelevance, an
| inevitable outcome as one ages.
| nicbou wrote:
| You can be passionate and content.
|
| There are plenty of passionate artists, athletes and
| engineers who don't care about going pro, getting famous or
| changing the world.
|
| For example, I'm passionate about software development, but I
| make simple things that don't matter. I'm passionate about
| cooking, but only for myself and the occasional guest. I'm
| also passionate about the website I live from, but I don't
| worry much about its growth.
|
| I like to build stuff, but I don't want an audience or its
| recognition. I don't want users nor money. I just do it
| because it's nice.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| I think this is just a simple semantics distinction.
|
| I believe what you mean by passion is interest, and what OP
| means by passion is drive. I think you're discussing
| slightly different things.
|
| I don't believe it is possible to be driven and satisfied
| at the same time. But I believe it is possible to be
| interested and content simultaneously.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I would say this is exactly how I was able to pivot out of web
| and database development into VR development[0]. I spent a lot of
| time going out to meetups when I first started getting into VR.
| Meeting people, talking to people. Eventually, I started showing
| people the stuff I was building. That led to getting asked to do
| talks at the meetups about the stuff I was building. That led to
| more contacts. I ended up making friends with folks who would one
| day make the connections that got me my current job.
|
| Incidentally, when folks at my current employer started talking
| about hiring someone for my role, they kept running into people
| who knew me and had a high opinion of me.
|
| Networking works in many directions. But it only works if you
| don't go into it looking for it to work. I think the big key was
| that I wasn't out to gladhand with folks. I was just out to make
| friends over a shared passion. It gives an authenticity to your
| speech that people can see.
|
| [0] Which now has a big web and database component, all in
| service to the VR app that I'm building.
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| I'm not sure the variable of how many other people I tell about
| my passion has an effect of its success.
|
| I have several passions and many ventures based on them.
|
| I believe "A farmer has as much luck as he has seeds in the
| ground" regardless of how many people are involved. I my case
| "seeds" are ventures that I start based on my passions, many will
| wither but some will do well and a few do great.
|
| The great ones seem to draw others to get involved even when I
| try to keep them low key.
| pototo666 wrote:
| I like this idea. It's simple and elegant.
|
| I am accidentally practising it.
|
| I make games. I tried and failed to get investement and partners.
|
| So I am making games alone. Last week I started streaming my
| daily work. I stream my the other screen display, such that I can
| decide what to show and what to hide.
|
| I told myself, streaming cost me no money and I might attract
| attention of partners and investors. Nothing unfold yet. But I
| would continue.
| _jjkk wrote:
| I have seen multiple indie developers successfully begin
| marketing on their unfinished / unremarkable prototype far in
| advance. In fact some of them get so popular they pivot into "I
| make videos of myself making games" instead of "I make games"
|
| I would recommend doubling up exposure by recording your
| streams, then cutting up the best clips and releasing them as
| Youtube videos. Also posting these Youtube videos to Reddit
| when possible (obviously following their self-promotion rules)
|
| Here is an example channel:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEhOhNgoZHI
| pototo666 wrote:
| Recoding stream is a good idea! Thanks for this concrete
| advice and example :))
| williamonill wrote:
| I think this equation completely forgets to take into account the
| power of the people you tell about your ideas. If you are
| studying in Stanford and can literally walk into the office of
| professor X and tell him about your ideas (which worked pretty
| well for Elizabeth Holmes and professor Channing Robertson but
| that's a different story) you have an enormous competitive
| advantage. And if you have a Stanford professor on your side,
| it's pretty easy to open doors to other influential people.
|
| On the other hand, if you tell your idea some stranger on the
| Internet... chances are much lower that you will find the right
| people.
| freshpots wrote:
| This is an excellent video from Veritasium that discusses luck as
| a factor of success: https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I
| ldbooth wrote:
| I like the visual of a surface area. It adds to how I think about
| it... The equation for luck similar as luck being the compounding
| interest component and over time, compounding itself with
| consistent doing. Compounding applies to many things, but take a
| business, years in business and word of mouth/experience is a
| form of compounding customers/revenue. Same for luck and doing
| something consistently with enthusiasm.
| hwestiii wrote:
| Louis Pasteur figured this out in the 19th century. "Chance
| favors the prepared mind."
| brudgers wrote:
| A theory that only works for people who are lucky enough to be
| surrounded by supportive people.
|
| Some people have the misfortune to know people whose usual
| reaction is throwing sand in other people's gears. People who
| crap on other people's plans.
|
| Just as good luck can compound, so can bad luck.
| umvi wrote:
| > A theory that only works for people who are lucky enough to
| be surrounded by supportive people.
|
| It's possible to change who surrounds you. By socializing in
| new bubbles, making new friends, or just plain moving to a new
| location.
| Shared404 wrote:
| With enough bad luck, it's possibly to never have the
| opportunity to make those changes.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| That's what the internet is for!
| TheCowboy wrote:
| This is also possible, but it's also something where luck,
| personal resources, and experience play a role in determining
| how successful such changes will be.
| brudgers wrote:
| Whether or not that works is a matter of luck. Part of that
| luck is the recognition that the people close are
| unsupportive and knowledge that there are supportive people.
|
| If someone has had the bad luck of growing up surrounded by
| unsupportive people, the recognition and knowledge don't
| occur naturally.
|
| The problem of long term socialization with assholes is that
| a person tends to be socialized to being an asshole. That
| facilitates new friendships with new assholes more than it
| facilitates new friendships with non-assholes. It facilitates
| socializing in asshole rich bubbles...etc.
| mish33 wrote:
| Bad luck may follow the same formula: what you did wrong times
| how many people that affected.
| mrandish wrote:
| The concept in the post is something I've observed in my own life
| and the lives of others. The article highlights that it's just
| not "doing" but doing something you are "passionate" about. I get
| a little stuck on that word because it evokes the "follow your
| passions" type of advice which can be taken the wrong way. Here I
| think the key is it's not just "doing" _anything_ but rather
| something you care enough about to at least try to do well. In
| other words, you 're putting attention and energy into it. This
| tends to be something others notice because it's authentic.
|
| The other thing which seems to elevate outcomes in this context
| is not just "telling" people as measured by quantity but also by
| quality. Just sharing with large numbers of people may work but
| trying to share with those who also "do" things will reach those
| most likely to care about what you're doing, the way you're doing
| it or even just that you're "doing" things with genuine personal
| investment. When I see that, it usually stands out and I'm much
| more likely to want to engage with that person.
| carrozo wrote:
| I've had this old post from Marc Andreessen pinned in my mental
| browser for a long time now. There are four types of luck and you
| can influence three of them:
|
| _Chance I is completely impersonal; you can 't influence it._
|
| _Chance II favors those who have a persistent curiosity about
| many things coupled with an energetic willingness to experiment
| and explore._
|
| _Chance III favors those who have a sufficient background of
| sound knowledge plus special abilities in observing, remembering,
| recalling, and quickly forming significant new associations._
|
| _Chance IV favors those with distinctive, if not eccentric
| hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors._
|
| https://pmarchive.com/luck_and_the_entrepreneur.html
| rexreed wrote:
| Of all those kinds of chance, the kind that you can really
| prepare for is really only Chance-type III.
|
| Chance I is truly deus-ex-machina stuff you can't foresee nor
| plan for.
|
| Chance II encourages randomness and serendipity, but those who
| lack the ability of discernment and proper focus risk being
| ADHD never focusing enough on anything to capture any
| opportunity, should it even emerge.
|
| Chance III rewards those who have deepened their knowledge and
| have stubborn persistence to weather the inevitable rough
| patches. Because if it's not rough, then it's too obvious, and
| if it's too obvious, there's no real upside opportunity. You
| can plan for Chance III and prepare yourself for this.
|
| Chance IV is black swan. It is the rarest of conditions where
| an eccentric hobby results in significant upside. You can't
| plan for this, and if you do pursue an eccentric hobby you
| should do it out of pure personal interest rather than planning
| for a black swan upside opportunity.
|
| I have a feeling Marc Andreesen would consider himself to be
| Chance II or Chance III. And I question if his "luck" can truly
| be attributable to Chance II but rather his ability to "will"
| his fortune into being by virtue of being in Chance III.
| ghaff wrote:
| And he really owes much of his fortune to Chance I. Right
| capabilities/decisions but right place/time.
| the-dude wrote:
| I practice this in billiards/carambole ( 3 balls, no pockets ).
|
| I try to avoid 'perpendicular' approaches, instead opting for
| shots with big angles, even if they are technically more
| difficult.
|
| This literally translates into a larger area where I have the
| chance to touch the 3rd ball.
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