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Re:Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees by nemothekid on Tuesday June 14, 2022 @05:19PM (#31746239)
Taleb has a more succint way of putting it[1], but no it can still be luck just like hitting black in roulette several times in a row can also be luck.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/153417277358051328...

Re:Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees by Domenic_S on Tuesday June 14, 2022 @06:35PM (#31746874)
Hitting black multiple times in roulette is always luck (barring cheating).

What the tweet is saying, and it seems right, is that looking at a probability graph the only way to get the billionaire-like outcome/outlier is to dramatically increase volatility, i.e. bet on long odds. If everyone went to work, maxed out their 401k, bought blue-chip stocks, and called it a day, basically nobody would have outlier net worth. But some people choose to increase the volatility of their money (buying crypto, starting a company, options trading, whatever) and as you'd expect 99.9999% of them don't get rich and the rest of them get uber-rich.

Re:Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees by smsm42 on Tuesday June 14, 2022 @07:23PM (#31747253)
> buying crypto, starting a company, options trading, whatever

I think these activities are quite different however. Saying starting a company is the same nature of activity as betting on an extremely volatile asset ignores all the work that goes into successfully creating a working company. Surely, there's no guarantee this work will bring result - but it's still not the same as just betting on random high-volatility assets. Even options trading is not (always) just betting, and for more successful traders probably involves certain amount of knowledge in addition to luck. But I don't think describing creating a company as completely probabilistic activity makes any sense.

Re:Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees by Domenic_S on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @01:07PM (#31755998)
The tweet (and me) aren't saying creating a company is "completely probabilistic", just that they're risky. Risky meaning there is an outsized chance vs. an established company that the new one doesn't exist in 5 years and the established one does (where "chance" means looking at outcomes in retrospect, not a roll of the dice).

The tweet is saying that founders becoming massively rich is a natural outcome of probability distribution -- huge payoffs require either huge bets at a smaller win multiplier (less "risky") or comparatively smaller bets at a huge win multiplier (more "risky").