Forum Post: einstein was wrong- there is no substitute for dumb luck ????

re: What’s Luck Got to Do with It
by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen

EINSTEIN WAS WRONG

If you were to ask billionaire Bill Gates, “are there entrepreneurs who are smarter than you and worked harder than you, and are not wealthy?”  I am sure he would answer “Yes.”  Unfortunately for those guys, they were not in the right place at the right time.

Einstein was wrong:  God does play dice with the universe. There is no substitute for good luck -- or bad luck. Good luck in business  means being there at the right time, preferably with a wealthy father who is a smart lawyer. For Bill Gates, the right place was the USA at the start of the digital computer revolution. Fukushima was the wrong place in 2011.  No one can  predict the roll of the dice or avoid bad luck. 

In the 1970s I was a  millionaire. I had organized Offshore Sea Development Corp, a research  company which developed technical products for potential clients. Then the stock market tanked, funding dried up, and the value of my stock plummeted to zilch. This is not uncommon in the business world.    

Collins and Hansen ignore dumb luck which has enriched many of America’s wealthiest 1% . Consider Huguette Clark, who died in May 2004 with $500 million dollars in the bank. The loot was left to her by her father, a speculator who lucked out in the copper mining business. Huguette, a poster girl for the GoodLuck Party, liked to play with dolls.... The authors also ignore the dumb luck of persons who, like Saudi billionaires, happen to control a plot of land with oil beneath it. They were in the right place at the right time. The dice roll snake eyes sometimes.

Cyrus A Adler 212.663.2163 the GoodLuck Party thegoodluckparty.tumblr.com Box 20329 NNY 10025