Luck

Meritocracy is to identify the lucky ones

(Excerpt from Ben Bernanke’s speech at the Baccalaureate Ceremony at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey) A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in terms of their health and...

April 23, 2023| Luck Read More

Adapt and stay alive long enough to get lucky

(Excerpt from A Short History of Money Market Funds by Ben Carlson) Vanguard’s first index fund hit the market in the summer of 1976. It was a complete bust, raising just over $11 million in capital from investors....

June 5, 2021| Adaptability, Founder, Luck Read More

Be good and be patient. You eventually attract what you project

(Excerpt from The Almanack of Ravikant) Figure out what you’re good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent. On a long enough timescale, you...

December 29, 2020| Luck, Morals Read More

Focus on staying in the game until the odds fall in your favour

(Excerpt from The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel) The trick when dealing with failure is arranging your financial life in a way that a bad investment here and a missed financial goal there won’t wipe...

September 26, 2020| Investing, Luck, Randomness Read More

Super successful individuals are cases of extreme luck

(Excerpt from The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel) …focus less on specific individuals and case studies and more on broad patterns. Studying a specific person can be dangerous because we tend to...

September 26, 2020| Luck, Randomness, Success, Survivorship Bias Read More

Ben Graham’s return was largely delivered by GEICO

(Excerpt from The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel) Benjamin Graham is known as one of the greatest investors of all time, the father of value investing and the early mentor of Warren Buffett. But the majority of...

September 26, 2020| Investing, Luck, Randomness Read More

Self-serving bias serves the ego

(Excerpt from Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke) self-serving bias arises from our drive to create a positive self-narrative. In that narrative, taking credit for something good is the same as saying we made the right...

August 23, 2020| Ego, Luck, Self-serving Bias Read More

Making a life choice is a bet on a future version of us

(Excerpt from Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke) In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing. …...

August 16, 2020| Life, Luck, Optionality, Path Dependence, Randomness, Success Read More

Outcomes = hard work x talent x luck

(Excerpt from Taylor Pearson’s Interesting Times 3 Jul 2020) Let’s say you have the opportunity to play a very attractive game. You flip a coin. If you get heads, you get six times your wager back. If you get tails,...

July 8, 2020| Luck Read More

Ovarian lottery’s role in success is often under-attributed

(Extracted from University of Berkshire Hathaway by Daniel Pecaut and Corey Wrenn) Buffett launched into an intriguing thought problem he called “the ovarian lottery.” You are to be born in 24 hours. You...

March 19, 2020| Luck Read More

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