But the thing is that without hard work, you can have all the luck in the world and nothing is going to happen. And it also seems that the people who work harder have more luck for various reasons raging from having more opportunities come their way to seizing opportunities better.

Ultimately, I think, the kind of luck that matters most is the lack of bad luck. You can be the hardest working person in the world, but if you get hit by a car and spend two years recovering, that's gonna be a problem.

My point is, success compounds. At one point it starts looking like pure luck.

"But the thing is that without hard work, you can have all the luck in the world and nothing is going to happen."

Unfortunately that's not true. People will the lottery every week. In business that happens too. Look at all the well funded startups which never amount to anything, and factor in the prestige, earnings and opportunity those companies afford their participants. Plenty of people are early employees of hot startups simply via friendships and connections. Many of them leave or are fired. Many of those people become vastly wealthy.

Moreover look at all the one-hit wonders and luck is an even greater factor. If people who are smart, talented and able can reproduce their success why are they so rare? When someone never manages to get close to their initial success lack is often in play. It's not that they weren't clever, or didn't work hard, but it can be that luck picked them from a field of very similar people.

That shouldn't of course change your behavior. Luck is beyond our locus of control and planning for it, or around it, is like planning around a potential meteorite strike, or rain.

Anything you can force via effort isn't luck which is why people get confused. You can achieve against the odds via hard work alone which is why working hard is worthwhile.

You can also scale your success. The difference between making a living, making a million and being Mark Zuckerberg can all be attracted to work and wit without the need to factor luck into the equation at all.

Finally we're all focused on good-luck. Bad luck is the real enemy. To be diagnosed with a serious illness, or to be unable to take an opportunity due to factors you cannot effect will cut the legs out from underneath you however hard you work. Sometimes your good luck is invisible unless you're aware of the bad luck of those who'd otherwise take your place.

You are completely right. Now think of an exact opposite case. You can do all the hard work and yet get treated unfairly.

Not all hardworking people are successful and not all successful people are hardworking.