From Mr. Andreessen's Pmarchive, originally posted August 14, 2007:
In the last few weeks, I’ve been reading huge stacks of books on the psychology of creativity and motivation—which is the reason for the relative scarcity of substantive blog posts. Said post situation will be remedied shortly, by a series of posts on—surprise!—the psychology of creativity and motivation.
But first, to complement my post on age and the entrepreneur from a few days ago, this post begins a series of occasional posts about luck and the entrepreneur.
Luck is something that every successful entrepreneur will tell you plays a huge role in the difference between success and failure. Many of those successful entrepreneurs will only admit this under duress, though, because if luck does indeed play such a huge role, then that seriously dents the image of the successful entrepreneur as an omniscient business genius.
Moreover, some of those people would shrug and say that luck is simply out of your hands. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t. But perhaps there’s more to it than that.
Dr. James Austin, a neurologist and philosopher (!), wrote an outstanding book called Chase, Chance, and Creativity—originally in 1978, then updated in 2003. It’s the best book I’ve read on the role of luck, chance, and serendipity in medical research—or, for that matter, any creative endeavor. And because he’s a neurologist, he has a grounding in how the brain actually exerts itself creatively—although there is more recent research on that topic that is even more illuminating (more on that later).
In the book, Dr. Austin outlines his theory of the four kinds of luck—or, as he calls it, chance; I will use the terms interchangeably.
First, he defines chance as follows:
Chance... something fortuitous that happens unpredictably without discernable human intention.
Yup, that’s luck.
Chance is unintentional, it is capricious, but we needn’t conclude that chance is immune from human interventions. However, one must be careful not to read any unconsciously purposeful intent into “interventions”... [which] are to be viewed as accidental, unwilled, inadvertent, and unforseeable.
Indeed, chance plays several distinct roles when humans react creatively with one another and with their environment...
We can observe chance arriving in four major forms and for four different reasons. The principles involved affect everyone.
Here’s where it helps to be a neurologist writing on this topic:
The four kinds of chance each have a different kind of motor exploratory activity and a different kind of sensory receptivity.
The [four] varieties of chance also involve distinctive personality traits and differ in the way one particular individual influences them.
OK, so what are they?
In Chance I, the good luck that occurs is completely accidental. It is pure blind luck that comes with no effort on our part.
Yup.
In Chance II, something else has been added—motion.
Years ago, when I was rushing around in the laboratory [conducting medical research], someone admonished me by asking, “Why all the busyness? One must distinguish between motion and progress".
Yes, at some point this distinction must be made. But it cannot always be made first. And it is not always made consciously. True, waste motion should be avoided. But, if the researcher did not move until he was certain of progress he would accomplish very little...
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...
Unluck runs out if you keep stirring up things so that random elements can combine, by virtue of you and their inherent affinities.
Sounds like a startup!
Chance II springs from your energetic, generalized motor activities... the freer they are, the better.
[Chance II] involves the kind of luck [Charles] Kettering... had in mind when he said, “Keep on going and chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.”
OK, now here’s where it gets interesting:
Now, as we move on to Chance III, we see blind luck, but it tiptoes in softly, dressed in camouflage.
Chance presents only a faint clue, the potential opportunity exists, but it will be overlooked except by that one person uniquely equipped to observe it, visualize it conceptually, and fully grasp its significance.
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.”....
....MUCH MORE
