There are 8 billion people in the world. Millions are brilliant, grinding incredibly hard. Take two equally talented people - same intelligence, same work ethic, same ambition. Fast forward five years: one's running a unicorn, the other's still at their day job.
The variable that made the difference? Luck. But really, it's one lucky break that compounded into everything else.
Yes, really.
Airbnb was dying until Obama O's cereal caught Paul Graham's attention - that got them into Y Combinator. Spanx exploded when Oprah randomly featured them after two years of Sara Blakely selling door-to-door. Stephen King's wife fished Carrie out of the trash and made him submit it one more time - that ended up becoming a bestseller.
But here's what people miss: Chesky had tried 20 different schemes before cereal. Blakely had been rejected by every department store. King had been rejected so many times he'd nailed rejection letters to his wall.
The lucky moment mattered. But it only came because they kept trying.
You could be a genius or work hard, but absent getting lucky, you're missing the most important variable in success. The good news? You can increase your odds.
I learned this through high school debate. My senior year, I'd go to tournaments with the goal of not just competing, but winning. I always felt prepared, but sometimes I'd get paired with difficult opponents - the ones who'd go on to win the tournament - or judges who didn't vibe with my style. I liked using kritiks (which, if you don't know debate, is basically these unconventional arguments grounded in philosophy that some judges love and others hate).
After losing in elimination rounds over and over, I started thinking I wasn't meant to win. Same preparation, same arguments, different results. It felt random.
Then one tournament, everything aligned. I kept getting judges who loved kritiks. My opponents made mistakes they usually didn't. The brackets broke my way. I won.
Same kid, same arguments - just more tournaments under my belt, giving luck more chances to find me.
That's when I understood: You can't control when luck arrives. But you can control how many chances you give it to find you.
Sophomore year at Cornell, I learned this lesson again. I sent the same email to about 80 alumni asking for career advice. Same subject line: 'Cornell student interested in finance.' Same three sentences about my background. Same resume attached. Even though many didn't respond, I did get lucky here and there. For every 20 emails, maybe one person replied. I'm still not sure why. Maybe they had a slow afternoon, maybe they were feeling generous, or maybe I just got lucky. Those few responses shaped everything that came after. One became a mentor. Another forwarded my resume internally. Pure volume, pure luck.
The pattern was clear: keep showing up, and eventually probability bends your way.
Quisque suae fortunae faber // Each man is the architect of his own fortune
The Volume-Speed Formula
The biggest difference between lucky and unlucky people? They take more shots, faster.
Stewart Butterfield didn't spend years perfecting his gaming company Glitch. He killed it fast when it wasn't working. Twice. That speed meant he noticed his team loved their internal communication tool. Slack exists because he failed fast enough to pivot.
Instagram wasn't a brilliant vision. Kevin Systrom built Burbn, watched it fail, noticed users only cared about the photo feature. Instead of trying to save Burbn for another year, he killed everything except photos in two weeks. Two years later: billion-dollar exit to Facebook.
Melanie Perkins got rejected by 100+ VCs before Canva got funded. But she wasn't pitching the same deck 100 times. Meeting 20 taught her VCs didn't understand education. Meeting 40 showed her to lead with design. Meeting 60 proved they needed traction. By meeting 100, she'd built a better company through iteration.
Travis Kalanick embodied this. Company 1: sued into bankruptcy. Company 2: barely survived. Company 3: Uber, worth $70 billion. Three attempts, each faster than the last.
The formula is simple: Try something small. If it shows promise, double down. If it doesn't, kill it immediately. Volume times speed equals manufactured luck.
The Credibility Cascade
Here's where it gets unfair: once you get lucky once, everything changes.
Win one debate tournament? Judges start listening more carefully. Get into a target school? Your emails get returned. Work at a name-brand company? Recruiters assume you're worth talking to.
Brian Acton's WhatsApp grind was getting the first 100,000 users. After that, the game changed. Press called. Talent wanted in. Investors who ignored them sent term sheets. Same app, different credibility.
I've lived this cascade. Cornell opened doors. Goldman / TPG / Clay each opened more doors. Each win made the next one easier. Not because I got smarter between acceptance letter and first day, but because credibility compounds.
Two equally talented people, one gets the first break, the other doesn't - five years later they're living completely different lives. The one who caught the break isn't better. They just got pulled into the credibility current.
The Ones Who Almost Made It
For every person who caught their break, someone else was right there but stopped one attempt too early.
Friendster had millions of users while Zuckerberg was still in his dorm. But Jonathan Abrams spent years trying to perfect his platform architecture while it was crashing. Zuckerberg shipped broken code daily and fixed it live. Abrams had the users, the idea, the timing - everything, but just didn’t have luck on his side.
Noah Glass actually created Twitter at Odeo, not Jack Dorsey. But Glass thought it was a side project, not worth pursuing seriously. Dorsey kept pushing it. Glass left before Twitter exploded. Same product, same code, same moment - one gave up, the other got lucky.
In markets, for every brilliant short there's someone long. Both did their homework. Both have conviction. But it's zero-sum - one person's lucky break is another's catastrophic loss. Same analysis, same effort, opposite outcomes. Sometimes luck isn't about attempts or persistence. Sometimes you're just on the wrong side of a coin flip.
The pattern is clear: success requires persistence, but even persistence can't guarantee you're on the right side of luck. All you can do is keep showing up and hope probability eventually breaks your way.
How to Actually Get Lucky
Take more shots: Whatever your field - send more emails, take more meetings, apply to more opportunities, start more conversations. I sent hundreds of cold emails before a few worked.
Iterate fast: Don't spend a year perfecting anything. Get feedback quickly and adjust. The market teaches you faster than any advisor.
Go where luck lives: Move where your industry thrives. Join communities where opportunities cluster. Luck has zip codes. It also has Slack channels or Discord groups.
Lower your standards for V0: Your first attempt doesn't need to be perfect. It needs to exist. Reid Hoffman says: "If you're not embarrassed by the first version, you launched too late."
Kill your darlings: If something isn't working after a few iterations, move on. The opportunity cost of perfecting the wrong thing is massive.
Stay in the game: Colonel Sanders was rejected 1,009 times before KFC franchised (this is a crazy stat!). He was 62. James Dyson built 5,127 failed prototypes. The 5,128th became a billion-dollar business. The only way to definitely not get lucky is to quit.
The Bottom Line
The difference between successful people and everyone else isn't talent. It's not connections. It's not even hard work.
It's shamelessness about volume and speed of iteration. Yes, it can feel a bit cringe - do it anyway.
They send more emails. Take more meetings. Try more approaches. Fail more times. And when something doesn't work, they move on fast. While you're perfecting your one shot, they're already on attempt fifty.
Every overnight success I've studied was actually years of attempts that nobody saw. Every "lucky break" was preceded by dozens of unlucky ones.
You want to get lucky? Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Start taking imperfect shots.
Because luck isn't about being special. It's about giving probability so many chances that mathematics eventually surrenders.
So I'll ask you what I ask myself: How many shots did you take this week?
Or are you still perfecting the one from last month?
love this - successful people take initiative (aka take shots) :)