Never attribute to brilliance…

November 23rd, 2022

Never attribute to brilliance that which is adequately explained by dumb luck.

A corollary to Hanlon’s razor.

Steve Jobs and Elon Musk were and are brilliant – we know this because they did astounding things not once but multiple times (Apple, NeXT, Pixar, Apple again, and PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX…). That doesn’t happen by dumb luck – the world is not that large.

But that’s pretty rare.

A lot of other amazing success is due to dumb luck. Not all of it, but without strong evidence, assume dumb luck.

One Response to “Never attribute to brilliance…”

  1. Bob Says:

    True enough.

    But was there anything in particular that prompted this thought?

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