Most people think of luck as something random and completely out of their control. I think that's because everyday experience makes luck seem random.
Most lucky events seem random because we usually only notice the final moment when something happens. A founder happens to sit next to a VC on a flight, who later funds their company. It looks like random luck.
But that seat on that plane was the end of a long chain of choices. Buying a ticket to that conference, deciding to keep working on the idea, being the kind of person who talks to strangers, having prepared a pitch deck. We don’t see any of that. We just see the last move, so we call it blind luck.
I like to think of luck as having many shapes. The book Chase, Chance, and Creativity by James Austin -- later popularized by Marc Andreessen on Luck and the Entrepreneur, describes four distinct kinds of luck.
1. Blind Luck
"In Chance I, the good luck that occurs is completely accidental. It is pure blind luck that comes with no effort on our part."
This is the stuff you can't control. Inheriting a huge fortune, getting Apple stock from your grandma in the late 80s, or missing a doomed train.
2. Luck from Motion
"Chance II springs from your energetic, generalized motor activities… the freer they are, the better."
Start moving and you bump into things. The more people you meet, the more projects you start, the more likely you'll collide with opportunities. You caused it by not sitting still.
3. Luck from Awareness
"Chance presents only a faint clue… it will be overlooked except by that one person uniquely equipped to observe it, visualize it conceptually, and fully grasp its significance."
Opportunities appear all the time, but most people don't notice. You will spot them if you're paying attention. The investor who spots the undervalued company, or the founder who recognizes the market gap.
4. Luck from Uniqueness
"Chance IV comes to you, unsought, because of who you are and how you behave." "Whereas the lucky connections in Chance II might come to anyone with disposable energy… 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." "We make our fortunes and we call them fate." —Benjamin Disraeli (quoted by Austin)
This is the most powerful type of luck because it's tied to what only you can do. From having an unusual combination of skills or perspective. Instead of you finding luck, luck finds you.
There’s something liberating in realizing luck isn’t just some random mysterious force you have to wait for. The less comforting part is admitting how much success depends on it.