While we must all acknowledge the crazy amounts of luck we've been privy to - it's not super useful except as a salve for your lack of success - which could totally be due to luck, or to temper your success.
Luck and work on dependent - we need to acknowledge that. I've had some damn lucky moments that I had to work my ass off for. Where's the utility in knowing that much is left to luck? The only way I can think is optimizing for luck - networking a lot, giving talks, giving help, etc. all, as some HNer put it "expands your luck surface area" - an apt term
Reading about the 1920s stock market crash recently it struck me that many men ruined themselves because they were unaware that their previous success owed more to luck than to their mastery of the situation.
I think a public stock market is a hard game to "good" at - far more luck based than other things. I mean it's a pretty efficient market with really high incentives to get information, and hence pricing, reflected in your positions.
Whereas - a person opening a construction company just has to beat all the super-flakey contractors that already exist and of course sell like hell. This is far less luck than the stock market is.
Luck and work on dependent - we need to acknowledge that. I've had some damn lucky moments that I had to work my ass off for. Where's the utility in knowing that much is left to luck? The only way I can think is optimizing for luck - networking a lot, giving talks, giving help, etc. all, as some HNer put it "expands your luck surface area" - an apt term