Jim Collins asserts that
successful companies aren’t luckier
than other companies.
They get a “better return on luck.”
“On one hand,
Bill Gates was lucky.
He was lucky to be
in the right place
at the right time,
he knew how to program
just as the first personal computer
came into existence.
But thousands of other people
had access to computers and
knew how to program in BASIC.
Yet, the difference between Bill Gates
and others
is not that he was lucky,
it’s that he did more with his luck.
He moved to Albuquerque.
He dropped out of college.
He got BASIC ready in time
for the first personal computer
and for the Altair.
He launched Microsoft and
he didn’t stop.
He [put in] another 25 years of hard work.”
In other words,
we’re all lucky.
Some of us, however, recognize
the situation as good luck
and leverage that luck into success.