Arguing anything other than differences in levels of persistent hard work and skill in your particular field has a large mountain of evidence to overcome.
The effects of those two are very large, the effects of everything else comparatively small per decades of startup and longitudinal entrepreneurial studies.
Nonsense about hustle is exactly that: nonsense. The weight of evidence suggests that, if anything, hustling and creativity have a net negative effect on long term health of a startup.
But there's money to be made keeping up the lie.
Lastly, beware of pseudo-pop-science that opens with only a few people's stories. People manage to succeed as founders all over the world; these stories are not remarkable and tell us nothing.
In general the whole "determination" thing has little to no value in any serious consideration of startup success: it's about on the same level of credibility as diet fads.
Well, played. For a couple of seconds I was wondering why I had this impression of deja vu then I found this (http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4692794). I burst out laughing.
Haha you got me. PG can rest assured that middlebrow dismissal apparently only gets a disproportionate share of upvotes when it's about health or nutrition :P
Success is always the result of hard work and skill, but failure is usually bad luck ;-)
I think you have the right internal Locus of Control (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control) theory needed to succeed. But personally I believe the truth is a more nuanced (i.e, my Locus of Contol theory is a more external than yours :)
Environment is important too; generally, when people of modest background and means rise to found successful businesses, this is invariably mentioned in their biography precisely because it's unusual.
The influence of social environment, peers, connections, location, opportunities and just plain old timing do matter, in my view. Even Warren Buffett acknowledges that he won the "Ovarian Lottery".
Yep, I even believe in "luck" too (unpredictable external factors outside one's control). You can found a perfectly viable business, work hard, be skilled - and then become sick at a critical time. These things happen. Likewise, making the right connection or deal at just the right time can make all the difference to one's success.
Of course, as others have pointed out -your view is the most useful. You can only control what you can control. But do I advocate kindness to others, because persistent hard work and skill are no guarantee of success.
The effects of those two are very large, the effects of everything else comparatively small per decades of startup and longitudinal entrepreneurial studies.
Nonsense about hustle is exactly that: nonsense. The weight of evidence suggests that, if anything, hustling and creativity have a net negative effect on long term health of a startup.
But there's money to be made keeping up the lie.
Lastly, beware of pseudo-pop-science that opens with only a few people's stories. People manage to succeed as founders all over the world; these stories are not remarkable and tell us nothing.
In general the whole "determination" thing has little to no value in any serious consideration of startup success: it's about on the same level of credibility as diet fads.