# Backlog #2: Hard Work Won't Take You That Far Talent is a myth, and effort and hard work are nothing without context. In this issue, we explore why success is pure luck, or almost... - URL: https://blog.lsantos.dev/en/backlog-2-hard-work-wont-take-you-that-far/ - Published: 2024-11-28 - Updated: 2026-07-16 - Section: opinion - Tags: backlog-newsletter, opinion, career - Language: en - Author: Lucas Santos --- What if I told you success is pure luck? That the month you were born could've made the difference between you being filthy rich or not? In this issue, let's talk about why **success is pure luck, or almost...** A few months ago I finished reading one of the most interesting books I've ever read, **Outliers** by Malcolm Gladwell, who's also the author of other books like "Blink" and "The Tipping Point". In general, he always touches on career subjects and ideas we don't usually think about day to day. In this one specifically, he focuses on one question: > Why do some people succeed, and others don't? ## The Talent Myth Since I was a kid I heard that "whoever works hard and puts in the effort gets everything", that "determination is the key to success", or even that I had "talent" for something. But the reality is that all of this is nothing more than a story to make us feel good about ourselves. Or is it? The reality is that talent as a whole is something massively overrated. For example, we tend to praise people who have incredible talent: a soccer player, a guitarist, a visual artist. But while talent is indeed important for these people to get where they got, it's not everything. They probably wouldn't have had as much success as they did if they had talent, but they would still have succeeded the same way without it. I call this "the talent myth". > Talent as a whole is something massively overrated. Outliers is the book that popularized the concept that you need to put in 10,000 hours of practice to become a master at whatever you're doing. And that's completely true, to actually be good at something, you need **a lot** of deliberate practice. And that's also one of the metrics for success. Or do you think the Beatles started out and were an instant success? The Beatles' story, as told in the book, says that during the band's early years, they met a manager who booked them a bunch of gigs in Hamburg. The venue they played at needed an act that would keep playing through the entire night, and as beginners they saw the perfect opportunity to not only build a repertoire doing covers, but also test their own songs, on top of gaining stage experience and conditioning for long shows. By the time the Beatles blew up, they had already played more than 1,200 shows in that one bar in Hamburg alone, almost 9,600 hours of nonstop playing across the most varied songs for the most varied crowds. That put them in touch with a lot of people who already knew the band, plus other managers and promoters who had other contacts for other gigs. The Beatles' story shows that talent alone isn't enough. Even as exceptional musicians, without those 1,200 shows in Hamburg, they wouldn't have had the experience or the contacts needed to reach success. You do need to put in a huge amount of effort, but a lot depends on how prepared you are when the moment comes. > Talent matters, but context is essential Talent is a mix of several factors, many of them tied to external factors you have no control over, like: - Historical context - Cultural heritage - Opportunities Or even things that look like pure random luck. Talent and hard work definitely matter, but they get amplified when other conditions line up, and that's not the only story I have to tell you. Like how one of the richest people in the world made the most of his opportunities to become who he became. ## Luck in success You're reading this newsletter right now, and you probably like computers (or you wouldn't know me), so you must know [Bill Gates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates). The co-founder of Microsoft, the biggest software company in the world (and my former boss), has been the richest man in the world and is still on that list today. And what if I told you all of that was luck? Sure, the talent was there, but luck was the main factor behind his success. The book tells his story too. > External factors shape your life, even when you have zero power over them The year you were born can determine a lot about your path. I, for example, was born in 1995. If I'd been born 10 years later, I would've missed the computer and internet boom. Ten years earlier, I might never have gotten into tech at all. My timing gave me specific advantages, like learning to work well without the internet and dealing with analog stuff. And the same thing happened with uncle Bill. Bill Gates was born in 1955, at the perfect time to catch the personal computer revolution of the '70s. If he'd been born 10 years earlier, he would've been too old. Ten years later, too young. Gates also got lucky studying at Lakeside School, an elite private school that, in 1968, got a computer terminal. There, he started programming young and was already racking up his 10,000 hours of practice. ![Bill Gates and His Kids Went to Lakeside School in Seattle](./5a1c67373dbef4a7748b7fb5-998a14.webp "Lakeside School in Washington") On top of that, another unlikely coincidence: if you remember [the last issue](/backlog-1-o-primeiro-pc-de-todos/), computers back then used time-sharing, meaning they were connected to a nearby mainframe. Because he lived close to the University of Washington, which had a mainframe and terminals available for use at night. He spent nights programming, thanks to understanding parents who let him stay out late. The effort counted, but the context was essential. If he'd had the opportunity and hadn't programmed through those nights, none of it would've happened. It was the vision to understand that this was an opportunity and grab it that made the difference. > It's not about individual effort, it's about the context of that effort To top it off, at 16, he still got the chance to work at TRW, alongside experienced engineers, on a software project. That experience put him years ahead of most students his age. All of that culminated in the creation of the BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800, together with Paul Allen. If he'd been born 5 or 10 years later, none of this would've happened. The point isn't to downplay his effort or talent, but to highlight that he knew how to make the most of a context of unique opportunities. I'm not saying effort is useless, or that talent doesn't count, but that talent and effort without seizing opportunities are worth nothing Another similar story is that of [Bill Joy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Joy), creator of Vi (today Vim) and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, which I'll tell in more detail in a future issue of Backlog. He was also extremely talented, but a lot of it came down to where he was and the moment he lived in. But, what if talent really didn't matter at all? ## Why rice matters So far, we've seen how talent was important, but not decisive, in some success stories. However, there are cases where talent has nothing to do with someone's success or skills at all. For example, there's a stereotype that Asian people are great at math. But what if I told you that has more to do with rice than genetics? > Asian farmers worked 3,000 hours a year versus 1,200 hours for the average European For centuries, growing rice was the main economic and cultural pillar in parts of Asia, especially China. Unlike other crops, growing rice demands constant attention all year round: the right amount of soil over the seed, perfect leveling of the land, and precise control of irrigation. Complex flooding and drainage systems needed to be adjusted regularly, making the whole process incredibly meticulous and labor-intensive. So the hard work is there, they're doing it every single day. ![288.500+ Arrozal Fotografías de stock, fotos e imágenes libres de derechos - iStock | Delta del ebro, Tierra, Flores](./plantacion-de-arroz-027f52.jpg "A rice paddy") Asian farmers worked, on average, 3,000 hours a year, while Europeans worked 1,200. Growing rice was meticulous and demanded constant effort. Giving up wasn't an option, or nobody would eat. That culture of intense effort, precision, and long-term focus got passed down from generation to generation, creating a legacy that persists to this day. And that persistence and focus on tackling hard problems means these folks don't give up easily, and push through even when everything seems to be going wrong. And that's why they're better at math, because it's something that demands resilience and effort, you can't give up just because you hit a hard problem. These things need time, effort. That's the trait rice gave that culture: persistence. While in most of the Western world children and teenagers tend to abandon a hard task after 5 minutes on average without making progress, kids in the East tend to push through for at least 30 minutes, six times longer. And that persistence and focus on tackling hard problems means these folks don't give up easily, and push through even when everything seems to be going wrong. This has nothing to do with talent, but rather a **cultural heritage** that gets passed down if you were born in a certain place, and only there. In this case it's a positive trait, but what if that heritage were the biggest problem in your life? ## Prejudice as an opportunity Another story told in the book is how prejudice against foreigners ended up turning those foreigners into successful lawyers. And how things completely outside your control, like your ethnic heritage, can be decisive for your story. > If you were the child of Eastern European immigrants, you'd face prejudice In the 1940s, the US legal market was dominated by big traditional firms, which only recruited lawyers from wealthy Protestant families, educated at prestigious universities like Harvard or Yale. Children of Eastern European immigrants, mostly Jewish, faced prejudice for not being as rich, and even with good qualifications, they were excluded from these firms. With no access to the traditional areas, these lawyers specialized in fields that were less prestigious at the time, like corporate litigation and mergers and acquisitions, areas seen as "dirty" and avoided by the big firms. For them, these practices were the only opportunities available, but also the start of something much bigger. > Luck is being prepared when the moment comes But in the 1970s, the market changed completely. Mergers and acquisitions became extremely lucrative, and suddenly, the legal market needed specialists. The best ones? Exactly the Jewish lawyers, who had more than a decade of experience in those neglected fields. That initial exclusion, outside of their control, forced them to specialize in a field that later became central to corporate law. Without that barrier, they might have followed conventional paths and never stood out as leaders. Prejudice is never a good thing, but this story shows how adverse situations can, unexpectedly, open doors to new opportunities. > And that has NOTHING TO DO with talent If we map this same idea onto today, minus the "dirty" part, the old Machine Learning and AI engineers, once seen as "disposable" or "low importance" fields, have now become indispensable for a generation that depends on them more and more. The same way these stories show how seemingly unimportant things can turn into incredible opportunities, my own path had a bit of that too. ## My Story To wrap up this issue, I want to tell you a bit about what I think my story has to do with all this. And I think it's even a little similar to stories like Bill Gates's (just a tiny bit smaller). Since I was a kid I had constant contact with hardware, software I was born in 1995 and was very lucky to grow up in a curious, experimentation-filled environment, thanks to my parents, especially my dad. He ran a VHS rental store and used a computer to do the spreadsheets, which gave me constant contact with technology from a young age. My dad was super self-taught and fixed everything himself, light bulbs, cables, showers, and I was always nearby, soaking it all in. Over time, that curiosity turned into learning. By age 6, I was already taking apart and putting computers back together (sometimes just to clean the parts from the rental store) and I knew how to identify resistors, transistors, and capacitors, even without quite understanding what they were for. That early contact with hardware and software was a huge advantage that few people had. At 6 years old I could assemble and disassemble computers In the 2000s, during the internet and computer boom, I was already tinkering with machines from an early age, but I was still too young to get a job. By the time I started technical school, I already knew most of what was being taught, which made things a lot easier when it came time to look for work. One day, at an event that, let's say, wasn't exactly popular with the cool crowd, I got offered a scholarship at a design school, something I'd always wanted to learn. I decided to start the course, and that's where the first coincidence happened. There, I met someone who connected me to my first real job, where I stayed for 5 years, even without a college degree or formal training in the field. I never did an internship. In the following 3 years I built up experience that few in my college had By the time I started college, I'd already been working as a developer for more than 2 years at that consultancy, the perfect place to learn, since I dealt with different clients almost every week. Over the following 3 years, I built up more experience than I would have in years elsewhere in the field, something few of my classmates had, because while they were only studying, I was doing both, at the cost of my health, unfortunately. By the time I became a senior developer, I was 24, with 6 years of experience. I was already giving talks and sharing what I knew, partly so I wouldn't forget it myself, and that connected me with a lot of people and opened even more doors. I don't consider myself an exceptional programmer, or an extremely talented one. I was just in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills for the moment. A mix of hard work, luck, and context. Again, it's **never** just talent. The final question I'll leave you with is this: How can you make the most of the opportunities around you to turn your context into success?