Re: Does it take luck to become a millionaire?
Well, I for one do not believe in "luck", but rather, "opportunities". Opportunities may or may not exist depending on a myriad of factors, some within our control, and most not....
However, when an opportunity does exist, it is vital that we are able to recognize it for what it is and take advantage of it.
With the Bill Gates example, an opportunity certainly existed for him to introduce DOS to IBM. However, if he had not had the foresight to see the need, and then the initiative and the willingness to pay tens of thousands of dollars for QDOS (an ungodly sum for something so arcane at the time) to be turned around into MS-DOS, and then have the balls to demand a nearly draconian licensing scheme to IBM, I don't think he would have been where he is today. He's also spent countless hours of sleepless nights working on projects to beat the competition.
It may be easy to say, "Oh, so-and-so got lucky." Maybe, but to me, just about every thing in life is a matter of probability of success. Through intelligence and hard work, we can greatly increase our probability of success on just about anything. If we only look at luck, I think we would end up selling ourselves short.
For better or worse, I'll make my own luck, thanks.
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