As far as I can tell, this piece is irrelevant to the rest of the article.

That's just a way to humble brag. If you read the paragraph, it doesn't actually say much:

> I was born in a developed country in the 80s (Italy), with access to fresh water, very good carbohydrates and a decent education system.

Yea, I was born in a "developing" aka "backward" middle eastern country in the 80s, but I still had access to fresh water and good food and decent education. Some of my cousins lived through civil wars and still managed to learn computer progrmaming while living in the civil-warn torn country.

Thats just being humble. Most successful people think its that way because they are special and worked hard. Wrong. Most people work hard, its the LUCK many underestimate. Being aware of this is healthy in so many ways, especially socially.

Veritasium has a nice video about that:

"Is Success Luck or Hard Work?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I

yes, thats where I learned about this, forgot it concretely though. Thanks for the reference!

> Being aware of this is healthy in so many ways, especially socially.

On the flip side, ascribing success entirely to luck is not at all healthy. I see lots of people who complain about their lot in life but then do nothing to change the trajectory.

Yet it is factually almost correct. Obviously its unhealthy to drop everything on circumstances and I understand what you are trying to say, however research shows: a person's home country explains two-thirds of the variation of income differences between all people in the world. This means where you are born is more important for how poor or rich you are than everything else put together.

This is another variation on the privilege discussion. It is okay to observe that some parts of the population are more privileged than others based purely on circumstance, but it is inappropriate to level the accusation of being privileged at individuals. And along the same lines, it is inappropriate for individuals who are disadvantaged to dwell on their circumstances and use that as an excuse to give up. Everyone can improve with effort, and I'd wager that the vast majority of people can improve enough to have a perfectly happy life if they try.

true, meant "most successful people work hard", to be more precise

There are many other things you need other then hard work or luck. For example if you work very hard as an elementary school teacher no amount of luck will make you a millionaire. I think there is a lot of skill involved in getting into spots where you are even exposed to the opportunity and then you need luck but maybe less then you think as there are so many opportunities around it would be just very unlucky to not stumble into one after a while (that is assuming you're born in reasonably not poor country, healthy and to parents that care about you).

Interestingly, Ramsey Solutions' study of 10,000 millionaires found that teacher is actually one of the top 5 careers for millionaires: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/retirement/the-national-stud...

(Disclaimer: there may be confounding variables the study didn't account for)

That is very interesting but I hard time believing that includes many elementary school teachers who didn't switch careers at some point. It would be interesting to see some details on it.

"Hard working elementary school teacher inherits millions from inspired student who became a billionaire and dies young."

Maybe some amount of good luck could do the trick...

His luck was that his set of dna and experiences made him land a rich tech job and made him smart enough to live in a Low Cost of Living location.

Sure, if his parents divorced and had he joined a street gang, it would have been harder for him to get where he is.

Everything is luck.

Luck and hard work aren't exclusive attributes for success.

What other attributes are there for success?

Being intelligent.

Didnt say so, did I? Hard work is necessary but not sufficient, thats my statement.

>If that's the crux, then why write about this other than to brag?

Haven't you noticed how pervasive the "no, I'm self made and being lucky has nothing to do with it" myth is around these parts?

Despite how trivial it is to observe the opposite. Spending a week or two living in a favela or any third world country slum easily disabuses people from harbouring such notions... Or we could just culturally recognize how much it's all about luck.

The luck here is being born into a decent family in a first world country and having an interest in/talent for technology. It is true that having those things are unearned, but many people have those things and yet still are not millionaires or work very hard to become millionaires. This guide is still useful for such individuals, despite the luck factor in having those good starting conditions.

If you read further, his luck is based on being born in a first world country. Something that most of the people on this board can claim. Everything else he accomplished was part of his plan that a good percentage of the people on this board could likely follow.

So I read your point to be that as long as one rolls a good base character, like being born in a developed country with a good education system and fresh water, the rest just takes care of itself? You know that's not right.

Next up: how I won the lottery

"I was born in a developed country in the 80s (Italy), with access to fresh water, very good carbohydrates and a decent education system."

If you grew up in a developed country, you're extremely lucky too.

A large proportion of readers on HN are also quite lucky in similar ways to OP and can make this work. This lifestyle also requires less luck now with remote work having taken off big time.

Account for luck bias, but then read the recipe.

I mean his other three points are actually pretty good: 1. don't compete 2. live cheap 3. invest

lots of young programmers dont think that proactively and thus miss out on a lot of money.

You can't get struck by lightning unless you out walking in the thunderstorm

> Preamble: I'm extremely lucky. ... So what you're going to read is 99% luck and 1% planets alignment.

We are all extremely lucky. We are just too cowards to move to Nigeria or South Africa or Ethiopia or El Salvador to cash out on this super luck that we had.

Reasons are health infrastructure, being far from parents and family, fear of violence, fear of diseases.

They are all valid. But by the same token there is an element of cowardness about looking at prices of stuff in foreign countries on Numbeo.com, calculate the churn rate and never actually act upon such thought.

Arrange your affairs to be a big fish in a small pond, if we don't make the mental leap we will never do it, because no matter how much you have there's always gonna be a bigger pond or a largest challenge.

It's a form of mental rumination I think, looking at people like Gates and Bezos...they have it in full swing.

They could own the universe and there is once in a billion chance of multiverses and they'd keep working to make sure they take on the new challanges that those multiverses represent

I fail to see what good it is to own a mansion and have a bunch of toys if you live in a dangerous area where you have to put up a gate, have armed guards and in general worry about someone knocking you over the head and stealing your shit. Being the richest person in the ghetto is like being tallest midget - who cares.

And none of that happens anywhere basically (except maybe some barrios in El Salvador or Venezuela)

Besides, in this world the shit is everywhere it's just the color that changes and the window dressing that makes people believe otherwise.

I'd rather deal with impoverished people and deal personally with my security than some scum of Silicon Valley such as Elizabeth Holmes or Elon Musk.

Have you personally tried moving from a stable, developed country to somewhere with much lower cost of living?

I lived for some years in a "good" suburb of a pretty well-known third-world city. Everyone had security bars on the windows and razor wire (or similar) atop their walls. Many of our neighbours employed round-the-clock armed guards.

I personally witnessed a police-vs-robbers shootout (leaving at least one dead on the ground) from my office window. For a while, carrying a pillion passenger on a motorcycle was banned because it was such a popular way to do drive-by shootings.

The majority of the expatriate community I knew there had personally experienced violent crime of some form (armed break-ins, hold-ups, car-jacking, etc). So had some of my local friends, of course, though many of them were much less well-off and therefore less of a target (you can't snatch someone's car at gunpoint if they don't have one).

When disorder and violence is that pervasive in a society, it can be pretty hard to live with.

But many aspects of the cost of living were indeed lower.

> I personally witnessed a police-vs-robbers shootout

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

Present day Lagos is not that much unlike the Los Angeles of the 1990s or the NYC of the 1970s and 80s.

Problem , of course there'll always be a safer place, by the same token people who live in present day LA or NYC are suicidal considering they could live in Montana or Utah, or Zurich.

Where nothing ever happens (good or bad)

I am from a third world country and moved to the US. I have seen plenty of violence from where I am from. Elon musk has never tried to car jack me.