Put another way: I had very few opportunities previously, and they weren't too good. I also didn't really have good ideas on how to get ahead. Now, it almost doesn't really matter what I do - every direction is incredible.
I'm not quite sure how to boil down this situation, but I'm not sure that it matches up to the article. My luck surface area is certainly larger now, but it mostly stems from one very well-timed decision, not from intentionally going out to make connections (I still struggle with that.)
First, I want to say that I don't think it was all luck. You put in hard work and you made it. I like the saying "the harder I work, the luckier I get." Luck gets you opportunities, work lets you take advantage of them. I say this first because I don't want anyone to read things as saying "you don't deserve it, you just got lucky". Luck doesn't detract.
> getting in at an AI-related SF startup before AI really took off
I want to point this out not to say we should just roll the dice on every person that applies for a job. Rather I say this because like most things in life, there's noise. If we forget about the noise, we're going to be less accurate. Randomness is literally a measurement of uncertainty. While we should try to optimize certainty, we are unable to be absolutely certain. So it requires recognizing the noise if you want to be accurate.
I think we often make a mistake by ignoring noise. Or worse, thinking we've removed it. We don't talk about this as computer engineers, but if you talk to any physical engineer (like a mechanical engineer), or even a machinist, all measurements will include tolerances. That's uncertainty, noise. Without tolerances, designs are not good enough to physically make something. And, the machinists will just make some assumption for you, which you gotta roll the dice if they're going to have too small of tolerances, making your part worthless or overdo your tolerances, making you pay far more than the part should cost. I think it applies to us when programming too.
> My luck surface area is certainly larger now
Lastly, I just want to note that Veritasium has a video on luck and success. I think it is worth watching[1]. It's worth pausing the video at points, trying to make predictions about what he will say, and then continuing. Good way to challenge your own biases (or discover them!)
[0] It can be funny when people will spend so much looking for candidates but also say that degrees are worthless. There's probably a lot of these contradicting mindsets we all have (me included).
I started with AI six months ago at work and am feeling kind of lost where to take my career.
My email is in my profile.
A better way is to observe the people who failed and failed miserably, and learn from their failures. My model of the world is that, for ordinary people, you are going to be exposed to some opportunities to succeed from time to time, but in a random fashion. You only need to catch one or two to be successful. So the key is NOT to maximize your success rate, but to make sure you never fell into a hole you cannot climb back, and prepare for the next opportunity.
But so far I have not seen any serious conference that focuses on failures. Everyone wants to learn from the winners. I’d hold a losers conference if I got the time.
I've always wondered about this for startups: failure porn just feels so useful but my suspicion is that it is useless.
There's just too many different ways to fail.
Focusing time and energy on how to avoid failure just seems so wrong. Getting sidetracked. Unmotivated. However I do think one needs the right amount of fear, and one needs to avoid the failure modes for your particular startup and your particular personality.
Surely the right idea is to focus on competing to win.
> for ordinary people, you are going to be exposed to some opportunities to succeed from time to time, but in a random fashion
The harder I work, the luckier I get
I definitely agree that it is important to look at failures and learn from them. There's a large bias for ignoring luck's role in our (or others') success. Sometimes to the point of becoming superstitious, like replicating patterns of successful people that have nothing to do with their success (e.g. their daily routine). But when looking at failure, it is also important to remember Picard[0]
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is a weakness, that is life.
If luck plays a role for success, lack of luck plays a role in failure. With success, we tend to underestimate the role of luck. With failure we tend to overestimate it. In neither case can it be ignored.
A conference that could cut through that and get to some real answers would be very valuable. I would call it a "burnout conference" though. It really seems like the terminology has changed recently; people say "loser" less and "burnout" more, perhaps in light of some recognition of:
(1) the seriousness of the circumstances (it's not a game)
(2) the personal nature of everyone's journey (it's not a competition)
(3) the degree to which a lot of this stuff is out of our control
(4) the toll the rat race takes on even the most strident
As an example, if you studied for an exam and did well, was it because you didn't get into a car accident on the way or overslept or got sick when you needed to study? Or because you studied?
I have found that many people want to attribute all success as 'luck' due to their own insecurities.
Almost all success is to have enough luck so there is a place for you. To have a place for you in uni, to have an open internship, to have an open position so you can step up the ladder, etc.
Initial starting conditions are the biggest variable in the chaos of life.
No matter what your success in life, be born in Cambodia in 1970 and it is going to be hugely different.
You are really just repeating the delusional western perspective that completely takes for granted their own initial starting conditions as a given.
- Operate from a place of genuine curiosity
- Assume you’re always auditioning for a bigger role
- Give before you take
- Air your weirdness
- Host events
- A period of lostness is a part of it
i think some novel points (host events is good, i agree) but also the rest of this is fuzzy and unorganized. you can spend a lot of effort accumulating microlucks but not get anywhere and burn out completely and early.
my version: https://swyx.io/create-luck
basically classic advice is do more x talk more about what you do = surface area
can improve that by pursuing authentic curiosity as TFA suggests
but then i add in an element of strategic thinking - go to where luck is more likely to occur.
Thanks, really enjoyed this.
Also, there is a difference between making decisions at the individual level and looking at the actions of all humans combined. A strategy that is sub-optimal for most individuals can still yield positive outcomes at the societal level. For example, it is fortunate that many people go into research, even though it is highly unlikely for an individual to find a massive breakthrough.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration%E2%80%93exploitati...
Highly recommended!
> the exploration–exploitation tradeoff ... for which no universally optimal solution is known
Exploration-exploitation is about a class of algorithms[0], and I would not say that means "there is no optimal solution." Rather, it is often applied to problems where there is no optimal solution. You can apply it to problems with known optimal solutions and it should still get you to the optima.
What problems don't have global optima? Most. Most problems we simplify in ways that will contain an optima, but it is best to remember the assumptions made and if they appropriately apply. This is part of why always maintaining at least some exploration can be a highly successful strategy. Extremely useful in the real world too as the environment is always changing. You cannot generate globally optimal solutions for dynamic problems where the future states are unknown.
[0] Examples include Q-Learning, Bandits, or sampling algorithms. Multiarmed bandits and Thompson Sampling are mentioned in the wiki but note that there are more bandit algorithms and more sampling algorithms.
It's not even clear what the reward function should look like, so perhaps the comparison with reinforcement learning is not a productive one. Life combines both evolution and learning, and it's all rather complicated to say something sensible about it.
I spent years smoothing out my quirks until I realized those quirks are what people find compelling. Ironically, aspiring influencers sometimes fake eccentricity. Think “Liver King”, when genuine oddity is far more interesting.
My parents were able to afford a $5k inflation adjusted Appl 2E and I never used it. I played a few games a few times but it mostly collected dust.
When we got the internet in the 90s, I mostly looked up what I could get high from and porn.
Then I spent a good decade drinking too much beer.
I blew every chance I had when I was young and have still done pretty well simply from being born at the right place at the right time.
I wasn't born with a lottery ticket, I was born playing a game of craps with weighted dice in my favor and was allowed to roll until I started winning.
We live in a society though of insecure douchebags with no self awareness to really gain perspective on how they won the powerball lottery of existence in terms of their time and place of birth. Make up fictional narratives on their own personal genius and "how you can too!".
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/04/warren-buffett-says-the-key-...
The books generally provided lists of observed patterns, usually at least a half dozen but sometimes a few times that. My takeaway from that reading was three general principles.
1. Location: The kind of events that you would consider relevant luck are not evenly distributed geographically. You need to be where they happen more often.
2. Preparation: At those locations, there will probably be multiple candidates waiting to take advantage of an opportunity. You need to aim to be the best candidate.
3. Flexibility: Your expectations for desirable opportunities have been molded by your limited knowledge of the world. You need to be ready to pursue opportunities that weren't exactly what you had in mind but may turn out to be just as satisfying.
TFA is hard to comment on because it feels like a rough draft. The reasoning could be sharpened. I have reservations about the "air your weirdness", because it seems to contradict the principle of flexibility.
Our own patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) also helped propagate the concept.
The basic equation is L = D * T — that is, luck surface area equals doing times telling.
I think the author strays from the original concept a bit. She’s not necessarily wrong, but I get a sense of focusing on style over substance in most of her examples as compared to the original concept.
Welcome to HN!
A few things:
1. Thank you for writing the book and providing the excerpt.
2. Here is a link to the original blog post by Jason: https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-sur...
3. I imagine that Jason would be happy to talk to you if you contact him and tell him what you’re doing. He goes by jayro here on HN, but I am not sure how active he is on HN these days.
3. I think there were at least two main issues that LSA tried to address. One was capable tech people who were not finding work opportunities that were commensurate with their skill. Another was about the benefits of building in public. Which leads to…
4. Patrick McKenzie (patio11 on HN) built and sold two businesses publicly (Bingo Card Creator and Appointment Reminder). He was a big proponent of building publicly as a way to increase luck surface area, and I think that the strategy worked well for him. He also wrote a truckload on various sites including but not limited to HN. I imagine he would also be open to talking to you if you reach out
5. To provide some more constructive commentary about your excerpt, I get the sense that each of the headings are mostly byproducts of increasing LSA — namely, be passionate about something and talk to people about it. If you do that, then it’s easy to operate from a place of genuine curiosity, you will naturally (without trying) be auditioning for a bigger role, you will be giving before you take, and you will be airing your weirdness (although it’s probably not weird). Hosting events (overly specific) and a period of lostness (talking to the wrong audience?) just seem extremely peripheral to me in the discussion of LSA.
Anyway, thank you again for posting your excerpt. Best of luck!
More links you might find interesting:
https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-sur...
https://alchemist.camp/metacast/luck-surface-area
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968751 (11 years later, but still…)
https://www.kalzumeus.com/ (Patio11 blog with all of the details)
Take those risky leaps but I'd add that "luck" also favours the well-prepared.
Risks that are imaginary can be real psychological barriers, fear-inducing, and life-limiting. So making those leaps is important, don't you think?
You really have to play dungeons and dragons with yourself, thinking up imaginative possibilities of what might happen at every juncture. Don't worry about nuisance risks, but try to foresee the potentially catastrophic ones and mitigate them.
I feel like this is generally good advice just to grow as a person. I love hearing what people are into, even if it's not really my cup of tea. I get to learn something new that I probably never would have found on my own. Plus, I usually end up making a new friend.
But I'm not a doomster so my plan is:
* Leverage stuff I have to do anyway at work for performance reviews. Initiatives means talking to new people at work.
* Attend school related social events.
* Family connections. No I'm not well connected like that, just chat to family.
https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-sur...
The advice to "increase your surface area for luck" by interacting more is half-right. The real leverage isn’t just volume—it’s receptivity.
Forced interactions ≠ luck. Dragging yourself to a party disengaged? Skimming a book you don’t care about? You’re not expanding opportunities—you’re a ghost in the room. Luck sticks to presence, not proximity.
Serendipity favors the prepared. Ever meet someone transformative because you were primed to listen? Or stumble on an idea because you were actively searching? That’s not randomness—it’s alertness meeting opportunity.
True "surface area" is neurological. It’s the difference between hearing and listening, attending and connecting. Optimize for depth of engagement, not just foot traffic.
My notes/ points that stood out for me:
- Actively seek diverse social, intellectual, and professional interactions. Each one expands your surface area for serendipity. TAKE MORE SHOTS!
- Don't go into interactions with an agenda. Real interest opens doors unexpected.
- Always aim for excellence. Even in small tasks. People notice this. A strong reputation pulls in opportunity.
- Give before you take. Offer attention, time, or resources without expecting immediate return. That builds high trust relationships.
- Share your authentic self. Put your unique thoughts out there. It's a magnet for those who truly resonate with you. Don't fake it.
- Host stuff. Simple, low pressure events work best. Taking the initiative to create connections is often more effective than just showing up.
The word is yes (Yes Man 2008)
Expectations are premeditated resentments. (from a 12-step friend)
Step 2: Do not be anything other than an extreme extrovert
e.g. pretend you're Tony Stark, a form of role playing (like how actors operate).
It's like saying you want to swim, but refuse to touch water.
I don't know, I don't see an inherent issue with this, I think there's value in some things said here but I don't see a lot of value in "going out and meeting more than 1-2 people per week" or whatever. It feels like one of those things you read and get excited about then have no way to act because "Oh yeah let me just go meet people! At ... walmart maybe?"
We all had a good laugh then she introduced herself as the mother of the other woman who happened to be very attractive. We continued chatting and exchanged contact info.
I’m not sure anything will come of it but I do know that I had a much more pleasant and serendipitous elevator experience because instead of just smiling after they admitted their mistake, I threw out a silly reply which turned into what it did.
Returning to the main topic: the problem with networking is that the scale of sellers is much greater than the buyers, and those networks have hierarchies difficult to penetrate.
[1] Projects have included: crocheting a bunch of adorable little stuffed cows, developing a privacy-first webapp for visualizing social graphs, painting the cosmos with oil on a wall-sized canvas, engineering the control system for a human-scale vending machine, building an automatic water turret which uses image recognition to shoot squirrels with water when they climb on a bird feeder, planning and beta testing LARPs, board games, social experiments, and so on and so forth.
But I found this article landed different than most self-help. It spoke in terms of mindsets one can adopt to do the things you mentioned.
And it made those mindsets compact/memorable so I'm more likely to use them.
Hell is (trying to herd) other people.
And every "business success" book ever. They're all just Survivor Bias. Have 1,024 people flip a coin 10 times, find the guy who flipped heads 10 times in a row, and have him write a book about what it takes to be a master coin flipper.
>>> import random
>>> ["H" if random.random() < 0.5 else "T" for _ in range(100)]
['H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'T', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H', 'H']
flip it more times, that's the luck surface area
“Trust your luck, Taran Wanderer! But don’t forget to put out your nets!” - Llonio
Scott Adams' book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" talks a lot about this, and is an enjoyable read, despite the author's current reputation.