Lucky You!

strategy+business, November 1, 2019

by Theodore Kinni



Photograph by Elizabeth Fernandez

Recently, on a social media site for professionals, I suggested that luck plays a significant role in leadership and business success. This didn’t sit well with several commentors, who argued that successful people become that way largely by dint of merit — they work hard and use their brains and hone their ability to identify and exploit opportunities. People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett make their own luck, I was told.

Hogwash. This is not to detract from the monumental business achievements of two of America’s wealthiest (and most philanthropic) men. But we should acknowledge that Gates and Buffett both drew winning tickets in the birth lottery.

Gates’s dad co-founded a law firm and served as president of the Washington State Bar Association; his mom, who came from a family of bankers, held prominent board positions. They sent their son to one of the best prep schools in the nation and then to Harvard, where, with their assent and support, he dropped out to start a computer software company. Mary Gates helped her son’s fledgling company get the IBM contract that led to MS-DOS. Warren Buffett was the son of a U.S. congressman — Howard Buffett represented Nebraska in the House of Representatives for four terms, and founded a brokerage firm. Warren’s parents sent him to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Nebraska, and Columbia Business School, where he studied with and was mentored by Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing. Buffett’s first job was in his father’s firm and then he went to work for Graham. Nobody gave Gates or Buffett their billions, or even their first tens of millions. But when they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, the climb wasn’t as far as it would be for most of us.

Once leaders attain positions of power, luck continues to play a powerful role in their success. Take Jack Welch, who was named “manager of the century” by Fortune in 1999. Read the rest here.