If we're going to get into the pissing contest I was 15 when I started slangin porn for $10k a month and being a real dick about it :1orglaugh

There really are valid arguments on both sides, but I will tell you luck has more than anybody admits to, and that goes for people on both sides of the aisle. Poor people will tell you they're being intentionally repressed by a system that was designed to enslave them. Successful people will tell you that they are successful because they made the obvious right decisions and worked hard.

Now I'm 30. When I was in high school they said if I like computers I should do IT and make a starting salary of $80,000 a year doing CISCO networking. I blew off college, just kept on learning computer science, hustling and wound up able to demand as much money as I want. Let's be real though, that's what I wanted to do. I didn't predict that with all those people going into IT sysadmins wouldn't be worth shit in 2014. I also wouldn't have told you all the people working hard to get degrees to work in the media, newspapers and all that would have their whole industry collapse and wind up working at Starbucks. Nobody can predict the future, and it's nobody's fault, but their are plenty of people who did the right things and still wound up struggling right now.

Now I'm a real software engineer. I still do web stuff, but I've also done massive enterprise software in manufacturing, logistics and finance. I can measure success in the amount of people who get laid off when I make something awesome. There are dozens of companies right now that have zero people working in logistics because I personally did the math to take them out of the equation. That's $50,000,000/year for one service where 5 engineers replaced? I don't know? obviously a few times more than $50,000,000 worth of white collar jobs. That was at the very start of the full automation too, lord knows how much it's worth now (if they haven't imploded, but that's a whole other thing).

Now I don't feel guilty, but I feel bad. These weren't dumb people. They were hard working, had great organizational skills, mediated between hundreds of companies at a time making things happen. They had lots of money riding on their performance, but now they're unemployed. I get when people are really upset and they want to blame us, because it's hard to look at the guy who is replacing you with an algorithm and not think he's motivated to end your career. It's very real that there's a conspiracy to get a result (a profitable business that can compete in the future) that necessarily means a massive amount of financial hardship for a lot of people.

Just saying, give each other a break and stop trying to put such a disproportional amount of blame on people. Things are the way they are, it's the way the universe works.

Also, watch out you guys. Adult is always way behind the curve because it's a microcosm with tiny profit margins, but in mainstream web publishing we're all working on artificial intelligence that makes editorial staff obsolete. Most of the stories about finance and sports you see on big news sites in the top 10 Google results on any given day are written entirely by computers. We are destroying the idea of the small web entrepreneur, blogger, the niche ecommerce business, all that. All it would take are a few of the people from the valley or the alley to actually attack porn and everyone on here would feel like the guys running the porn theaters must have.

I already wrote a big ass TL;DR thread, but it's just a fact that luck has a lot to do with it and there's no guarantee that you won't work hard, struggle, do what you're supposed to and end up in a gutter. Despite that, it never pays to place blame on your luck when you could be working. It does, however, pay to give credit to luck where it's due. There's a saying that geniuses see the same amount of patterns that super geniuses see and the difference is that a super genius will dismiss half of them as coincidence. Twice as many experience points with each effort.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I guess those guys in the "valley" must have not heard the news that selling porn is already dead.
But I guess they are welcome to come in and see how their genius ideas will do any damn thing at all against an industry that is crippled by hundreds of thousands of completely FREE scenes on thousands of tubes and torrents.

Good luck with that all you guys in the "valley".

By the way, I get what you were trying to say in your post. You just kinda jumped the shark on "bragging" when you went with that last bit. :)

Hey that's why I stopped adult in the first place. I actually hate the valley, I'm in the alley where it's a little more in touch with reality.

What I envision happening as far as ruining it though is someone coming in and wrecking all the current tube sites with something like the Amazon of tube sites. Even on the really massive tube sites the UX is terrible, the SEO is horrible, they're still monetizing with dick pills and dating and now here in new jersey, gambling. Somebody somewhere will come in with some data scientests, UX and SEO guys, do some faceted search for endless free porn of whatever weird specific fetish you can think of and get Axe Body Spray or Red Bull to pay $1,000,000 for a subtle week long branding campaign.

Luck has a little to do with it, and it's called 'perfect timing' not luck, at least in regards to business. No one just tripped over a rock and fell into a million dollar business, or rolled out of bed into a $10,000 pay site. Playing a scratch off is luck. Anything that requires work isn't. :2 cents:

There is no guarantee you will wake up tomorrow. Life is not fair. Buy a helmet.

:pimp

That would be an awesome song lyric! :)

I can't change your mind, nor do I want to. The more people that think they can't succeed, the easier is becomes for those that think they can.

Keyword: think.

watching the beatles show from last nite, McCartney talked about the incredible amount of luck and coincidences they had that significantly contributed to their success.

He also mentioned hard work.

Indeed. Those guys had little to no talent at all, nor changed the music industry in any way.

:winkwink:

You'd have to argue that with him, He said it about his and their success, I'm the messenger.

:)

The harder I work, the "luckier" I get.

Funny, isn't it?

There is no such thing as luck. Sending the message to anyone that "luck" matters is the worst possible message to send.

If "luck" is important in success ... Maybe we should change school curriculums to help kids develop their luck?

I can't imagine a more corrosive idea as it pertains to success and the drive to succeed than telling people "it's luck".

That's like attributing success to unicorns and elf's

No I agree with you there. Regardless of luck feeling sorry for yourself can only lead to wasted time. If you get a bad hand you just have to keep moving. The victim mentality causes a lot of people to turn setbacks into defeats.

I've noticed though that the harder I work, the "luckier" I get! :pimp

There's no hard work in the happenstance of attending the same school or living down the street from one another.

How the Beatles Went Viral: Blunders, Technology & Luck Broke the Fab Four in America

Six weeks is all it took for the Liverpool foursome to go from unknowns to the biggest pop stars in the USA. Here's an exhaustive look at how it happened

http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...n-america-1964

Talented musicians + perfect timing.

I'm a big believer in the notion that luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

But I also have to recognize such things as McCartney pointing out lucky coincidences playing a factor for them. It's not something to count on, rely on or teach in schools.

Nevertheless, McCartney is aware of his own talents and still recognized the luck involved with the Beatles. That's reality.

If there's no such thing as luck, then lotto winners are hard workers.

the more I work smart the more "luck" I have :2 cents:

Problem solved

/thread

In the long run luck evens out for everybody.
If you try 100 things you will be "lucky" X% of times and unlucky Y% of times.
If you try only one time and catch unlucky Y and stop, well thats too bad.

this is my main problem with what everyone is saying...there is no guarantee you will come out on top. you may work hard, pour all kinds of money into it and still not be successful and end up bankrupt and your family on the street. the idea that if you just 'work hard' you'll be successful is waayyy over simplified and almost moronic.

yeah really. was it hard work that brought steve jobs and wozniak togther? no..

I think the overall concept is that the people who have ambition and drive are the ones who keep trying until they DO succeed.
Whereas the people who do not have that are more likely to always just do enough to get by.

obviously there is more to it, you aren't going to get very far in life working hard 80 hours per week for $7/hr...

there are other details, like living below your means, always striving to improve your skills, seeking out opportunities, etc...

it's a combination of different skills and habits, which when combined more often than not lead to success...

Do you propose that Steve Jobs and Woz shook each other's hand one day and bam! the world changed?

I met Warren Buffett once. I did not become rich the next day. What did I do wrong?

Meeting someone is like an idea. Great, you met them. Great, you have an idea. Now what? Oh wait, now you have to work!

The point is there was no hard work in the 2 crossing paths. It was luck. what they did after that is where the hard work comes in.

...and from there, I am sure it was 'luck' that kept them in business for decades, not the hard work for them or all of their employees slaving away creating new ideas and innovations. It was just one lucky scratch off ticket year after year. They just had to sit around in their underwear and watch the checks roll in.

:disgust

if you were high school friends with warren buffett i'm that would have a pretty decent impact. comparing being friends for decades to a one time meeting doesn't make any sense. my point was them meeting and becoming friends forever changed the course of their lives. had they never met, while i'm sure both would of been successful at something, would they of reached the level that they actually did?

Wozniak recounted how and when he first met Steve Jobs: "We first met in 1971 during my college years, while he was in high school. A friend said, 'you should meet Steve Jobs, because he likes electronics and he also plays pranks.' So he introduced us."

Right. "Luck" doesn't mean much. It is an opportunity. It can be an realized or unrealized chance to make a difference, build a business, develop an idea or concept. As the saying goes, 'chance favors the prepared mind' as those individuals knew how best to take advantage of that opportunity when presented. The rest is on you and that requires work and ambition.

I see you're basically just playing devil's advocate in this thread, and that's fine. But my responses additionally will be along that line as I think you're simply trying to keep the discourse going on this subject playing a side you do not believe in based on your post history on similar topics.

"...and from there".... hey smart guy i am not talking about 'and from there' i am talking about how their meeting played a role. a meeting that had nothing to do with hard work.

Honestly, I now see why 12clicks makes fun of you. A 'meeting' doesn't make a business. It takes more than luck.

That's what happens when humility meets talent.

Read Good to Great by Jim Collins... of all the 15 successful CEOs they tracked for 15 years, they all shared that same common trait without exception. They attributed all their amazing to success as a result of all the amazing things they did to run the company really really well and to be in a position to meet any challenge that came along, including building amazing teams that all shared the same passion for the success of the organization, as "good luck" and took personal responsibility for every failure. All the 15 comparison company CEO's that were in the same industry, at the same time, with a company of the same size and facing the same market changes... failed as they and their egos, rode the companies into the ground. Those failing CEOs, also, without exception, took personal credit for every success and blamed "bad luck" for every failure.

:2 cents:

The funny thing is they think they are imparting some sort of wisdom... when the very things they are saying are absolute, proof positive that they are incapable of running and growing a business.... and never have.
:2 cents:

There's no question I'm OTR here that I believe achievement comes from hard work. But I'm also OTR as trying to keep a realistic outlook. I think what McCartney stated in the special coincides with what I've read, particularly in the book "Outliers". Luck is not something to count on, it doesn't take the place of hard work and perserverance. But, for me, to not include it isn't realistic.

Bill Gates is a good example, he was lucky to be born at the time he was, to the parents he was and in the environment he was. If he were born in the 1800s, he would not have been a software mogul, i.e, he was lucky in his birth, the book goes into this.

There's a reason I don't gamble or play the lottos, etc. That's because I don't believe in getting lucky as a way to make it. But again, as you point out, luck counts, to what degree it translates to fortune and fame is dependent.

and i can see why you play successful guy on the board but in reality claimed bankruptcy. you want to play with words, thats fine but anyone with a grade 8 education can get what i am trying to say.

I just bought the kindle version of this, thanks for the suggestion!