Well, we need to systematically

understand this and and Morton really

gets a lot of credit for for this

because we we figured out how to do it.

You have to first of all define what

luck is. If you're going to study luck,

you have to understand what it is and

realize that luck is not an aura or

something. It's an event. It's a luck

event. And and if we could put the

parameters of what is a luck event and

what with Morton's collaborating

together, we defined a luck event and I

think this is a really good definition

is a you didn't cause it. So if somebody

says you make your own luck, it's not

luck by definition, right? Because

there's bad luck too. If I get a cancer

diagnosis and we say I make my own luck,

no, you didn't cause it. The second is

it has a potentially significant

consequence, good or bad. And the third

is in some way it came as a surprise.

You you didn't know that it would happen

or when it would happen or what form it

would take, right? But there it is. And

any event that meets those three tests

is a luck event. And once you have that

lens,

you didn't cause a potential significant

consequence, some element, some

significant way, it's a surprise. You

begin to see their luck events happening

all the time.

And and so then what Morton and I did

was we looked at these companies and we

said, "Well, now let's actually run the

numbers and see because we always had

comparatives in that study." And we were

able to demonstrate that the big

winners, the ones who had the huge

outsized returns relative to their

direct comparisons,

did not get more good luck. They did not

get less bad luck. They did not get

bigger spikes of luck. And they didn't

get better timing of luck. So luck as a

distributed variable was pretty even

between those that were the huge 10x

winners and their direct comparisons. So

clearly luck didn't separate. And then

that led to the observation that but it

was the return on luck that when the

luck came

they had this amazing ability relative

to the comparison to make more of the

luck and that led to the return on luck

as the critical variable. So now we come

to this study and I I was looking

through you know just looking at the

amount of luck that's in these people's

lives and it's you know there's a whole

chapter on it. There's lots of

permutations of luck, including the

roulette wheel, which which set of

encodings you get thrown into at some,

you know, stage of life that just puts

you there that you didn't expect to be

there. We're talking about Grace Hopper

earlier. How'd she end up in computer

scientists? Well, World War II happened.

She got pulled out of being a professor

at Vasser. She was assigned to this

project at Harvard she didn't even know

existed. And it was the first computer,

the Mark1. And that cast the dive for

the rest of her life. Well, without

World War II or without that assignment,

without right, it would have been some

other set of encodings that that went

off. But then I started looking at what

are the types of luck and I through this

study came to see I think there are

three. There's what luck which is a good

event that goes your way or a bad event.

You know, a cancer event would be a bad

luck. What luck? There's hool luck. And

I think this is the often

underappreciated

gigantic kind of luck in life. And my

life is a continuous series of hoolock

events starting with Joanne, but others

as well. And bad luck, the bad luck of

my father. And then there's zeit luck.

and zeit luck which I didn't really see

until this study is when what you're

doing just you know happens to fit with

a particular zeitgeist that's happening

at the time of which you did not cause

but it is a huge reality so I mean

Benjamin Franklin you and I would never

talk about Benjamin Franklin if he had

been born at a time that he wasn't there

for the revolution and the founding of

the country and Alice Paul if she'd been

born 20 years later or 20 years earlier

earlier, she wouldn't have been there to

bring the 19th amendment and suffrage to

a successful close. She would have done

something else, right? But not that. And

so Jimmy Paige and had not been born in

England, coming of age in the blues rock

revolution, right there as all this

great music was happening, right?

>> I'll just say briefly, people need to

read it, but the the entire founding

story of Led Zeppelin is kind of when

you look at the number of things that

had to go right. Yeah.

>> It's just wild.

>> Yeah. And there's that great quote from

Robert Plant saying, "What was that? The

gods roared and you know, lightning

crackled and Blake wrote a poem from

under the ground and all England was

reunited." You know, it's just this

great moment in that basement that where

they had that first song when they

played train kept a rolling and the four

of them came together. Anyway, zit luck

is a big one too. And then what we found

in this study is and I think it really

is a it's a very true finding.

They were really good at getting a

return on luck when luck came because

they have that these things we called

Natalie moments. Not all time in life is

equal. And you recognize this is a not

all time in life is equal moment. And it

requires an unequal response to an

unequal moment. And so now I come back

to you, Tim. If you're good at this

return on luck thing. Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> So the 600 tennis balls are coming at

you. one of them is the one that you

decide to to hit. What about your

ability to kind of recognize it's a not

all time in life is equal moment

>> and to go to kind of a 10x intensity

in that moment. I'm curious how that

plays out for you.

>> I think there's a lot of overlap and and

certainly I I think my maximizing return

on luck has an ROI distribution very

similar to angel investing. I

So 80% of the times I hit the ball, it's

like Marco and there's no polo. Nobody

hits it back, right?

But but every once in a while I'm like,

"Holy cow, I just scored the winning

point in Wimbleton. That's crazy. Didn't

see that coming." Yeah.

>> So I'll come back and answer that. I

think they're very closely related. And

I identify with the what who and Zeit

luck for instance when I started angel

investing 2008 roughly 2008, 2009, 2010.

I mean, it was just a beautiful time to

angel invest. Yes, there's some skill

involved. I tend to disbelieve people

who attribute anything solely to luck or

solely to skill. It's usually some

combination. But there are definitely

periods of time where I felt that not

all time in life is equal and this is

where you need to apply some pressure

to the vessel. Yeah. Right. And that

could be the first book which you know

we don't need to get into right now. It

could be early on the angel investing.

>> It could be for instance around 2015

deciding to like 10x 20x 30x down my bet

on supporting science related to

psychedelic assisted therapies. And even

back then starting also but now

typically non-invasive but sometimes

invasive bioelectric medicine brain

stimulation I think that's I have very

high conviction that that is around the

corner. So taking a peek at the future

that's not evenly distributed. I feel

that way about bielectric medicine right

now. So I think they're very tightly

bound in a sense and question for you.

There's this term that I came across. I

I wish I had the attribution, but uh

believe it was from someone in Silicon

Valley or at least someone in tech. They

talked about increasing the surface area

of luck. In other words,

if you need luck, if we're talking about

good luck to stick to you, how do you

increase the surface area available to

which that luck can stick? And when I

think about my own hoolock for instance,

>> it was entirely dependent in the world

of startups and even one could argue the

success of the first book on me moving

to Silicon Valley being in the middle of

that switchbox. Without that, forget it.

There was not enough surface area to

which Hooluck could really stick.

>> Yeah.

>> And I'm just wondering if that

resonates. So first of all I think

whatever the size of the surface the

idea of luck and return on luck

is always operating if you will right

because I mean you could be you know my

family in rural northern Oklahoma on my

on my father's side isn't Silicon Valley

but my grandmother who grew up there you

know she had luck and return on luck

that her life was affected by I mean she

was this beautiful Oklahoma farm girl

and she was working at the Witchah

airport and this dashing test pilot who

was my grandfather Jimmy Collins landed

for fuel on a Memorial Day weekend and

they met and 4 days later they were

married and it was like okay this is a

hoolock moment but we're both going to

seize that not all time in life is equal

and boom right you know so that notion

of the luck and return on luck can

happen sort of anywhere There