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The four kinds of luck

date Oct 5, 2019
authors Marc Andreessen
reading time 1 min
category blog

4 kinds of chances:

  1. Chance I is completely impersonal; you can’t influence it.
  2. Chance II favors those who have a persistent curiosity about many things coupled with an energetic willingness to experiment and explore.
  3. Chance III favors those who have a sufficient background of sound knowledge plus special abilities in observing, remembering, recalling, and quickly forming significant new associations.
  4. Chance IV favors those with distinctive, if not eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors.

4 questions:

  1. How energetic are we?
  2. How curious are we?
  3. How flexible and aggressive are we at synthesizing?
  4. How uniquely are we developing a personal point of view? A personal approach?

Chance II

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. Motion yields a network of new experiences which, like a sieve, filter best when in constant up- and-down, side-to-side movement.

Chance III

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

Chance IV is the kind of luck that develops during a probing action which has a distinctive personal flavor. The English Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, summed up the principle underlying Chance IV when he noted: “We make our fortunes and we call them fate.” Chance IV comes to you, unsought, because of who you are and how you behave.