(2007-08-27) Andreessen Entrepreneur Luck

Marc Andreessen on 4 types of Luck (is type4 Magick?) and its importance to the Entrepreneur. Luck is something that every successful entrepreneur will tell you plays a huge role in the difference between success and failure. Many of those successful entrepreneurs will only admit this under duress, though, because if luck does indeed play such a huge role, then that seriously dents the image of the successful entrepreneur as an omniscient business genius.

Dr. James Austin, a neurologist and philosopher (!), wrote an outstanding book called Chase, Chance, and Creativity -- originally in 1978, then updated in 2003. It's the best book I've read on the role of luck, chance, and serendipity in medical research -- or, for that matter, any creative endeavor. And because he's a neurologist, he has a grounding in how the brain actually exerts itself creatively -- although there is more recent research on that topic that is even more illuminating (more on that later).

In Chance I, the good luck that occurs is completely accidental. It is pure blind luck that comes with no effort on our part.

In Chance II, something else has been added -- motion... A certain [basic] level of action "stirs up the pot", brings in random ideas that will collide and stick together in fresh combinations, lets chance operate.

Chance III involves involves a special receptivity, discernment, and intuitive grasp of significance unique to one particular recipient. Louis Pasteur characterized it for all time when he said, "Chance favors the prepared mind."

Chance IV is the kind of luck that develops during a probing action which has a distinctive personal flavor....Chance IV is so personal, it is not easily understood by someone else the first time around... here we probe into the subterranean recesses of personal hobbies and behavioral quirks that autobiographers know about, biographers rarely... Whereas the lucky connections in Chance II might come to anyone with disposable energy as the happy by-product of any aimless, circular stirring of the pot, the links of Chance IV can be drawn together and fused only by one quixotic rider cantering in on his own homemade hobby horse to intercept the problem at an odd angle.