The analogy to the world war 2 bomber story is applicable only if you accept the core premise of the article: that most of it boils down to luck.
If the successes of the successful really are the result of their decisions, planning, approach, or other action on their behalf, then where the bullet holes wound up on an airplane isn't analogous.
I personally do think that luck has a lot to do with it, but it's not sheer luck, it's recognizing opportunity and capitalizing. Yes, the iPhone wouldn't exist if it weren't for the DoD building GPS. But the DoD building GPS didn't make the iPhone either. Apple made the iPhone, while other competitors tried to make something like it. It was the decisions that led to the iPhone that can teach us about it's success.
Every set of decisions occurs within an environment. The parameters of that environment can be called "luck" if you want, and success within that environment can be ascribed to the environment itself by way of the word "luck." But looking at it that way tells you less about success than the success stories. After you armor the engines and you get more planes making it home, you don't call that luck, you call that good decision making. And you ascribe the success to the decisions, you don't dismiss them as survivorship bias.
I don't think the article is arguing that it's just luck, just that luck plays a huge role.
But also, and more importantly, the article seems to be arguing that these success stories are mostly unhelpful. If you do all that Steve Jobs did, it's likely you won't be even remotely successful as he was. "Stay hungry, stay foolish" is inspirational -- I like the quote -- but also mostly meaningless. Like "follow your passion", "work hard", etc. Yes, we all already know this, and it mostly won't help us become the next Steve Jobs.
I'd agree that these pop, self help seminar success stories are unhelpful, but for different reasons (although they are mentioned in the article): people with these stories rarely mention the not so pretty parts of the story unless those parts serve to "teach a lesson" in line with the narrative in the story, and that successful people tend to ascribe success disproportionately to themselves in a manner very akin to superstition. Most of what they're telling you were the keys to their success will be unhelpful, nevertheless, examining their success with your own mind and not with their words can show you a great deal about what works and what doesn't.
I’ll add that it propagates the other way too: only those who’ve positioned themselves to take advantage of changes in the environment can get lucky. Taking the iPhone example: have you built a team of engineers, designers, and manufacturing experts able to create and launch an iPhone when it becomes possible? One company did. This is what VC types call “creating your own luck”. Being prepared to seize new opportunities doesn’t make them happen, but they happen often enough that being prepared for them has a positive expected value.
How do you, personally, prep for luck? By cultivating valuable skills, minimizing overhead and commitments, earning the respect of a lot people, having a well-calibrated risk tolerance, and so on. You are trying to turn luck from a necessary but insufficient condition to a necessary and sufficient one.
That's not really the thing. First, people immigrate from one country to another all the time. Not to mention you can move around freely within a country. Most people in San Francisco are not from San Francisco (people from San Francisco are pretty upset about it). Second, people are successful and have good lives outside of San Francisco.
That is certainly true, but realization of that fact won't help you in your life at all. There are infinitely many statements that are true but unhelpful. However finding some motivation and lessons from success stories can help you whether you are tending a tea plantation or a web startup.
The B-17s underwent continuous improvement throughout the war as what worked and what didn't work was learned.
Also, if a B-17 crew survived their first 5 missions, they had the same chance of surviving the next 25. This isn't luck, it's learning.
My father wasn't everyone's drinking buddy in the Air Force in the Korean War, but when there was a dangerous mission for his squadron, he would be asked to lead it, as he'd get the target hit and bring them back with the fewest holes in the airplanes.
I'm sure that successful businessmen also consistently make better decisions than the unsuccessful ones do, even if each incident is luck.
It seems to me that this is na obvious heuristic - that experience matters when applied to well defined roles. The more simplified role You look at (just look at chess or go players) the easier it to defend this intuition.
But being businessman and especially sucessfull one is too ephemeral and not well defined - it entails almost every posible activity You can imagine. And I do not buy that this obvious heuristic is also so obvious in this case. Most powerfull businesspeople will claim it is but they have vested intrests in it being so.
There are many, many obvious mistakes people make in business. The notion that people cannot learn from these mistakes and improve their odds is bizarre.
For example, being sloppy with the books has sunk many businesses. Failing to look out for employee embezzlement is another. Undercapitalization. Hiring friends. And on and on.
I'd agree; you can't boil it down to just luck or just hard work. I think it a correct notion that fortune favors the prepared, and neither luck nor hard work on its own suffices.
If you look more closely, I believe that hard work, luck, nepotism and sociopathy all become apparent factors in successful business, with their levels being able to be exchanged to some degree (with some having a greater amount of variability, depending on variation of the others).
In the end: you are right; a bar of gold can fall onto a dead body, but he's no better for it.
Luck alone is sufficient. As a simple example: if you've been born into the Gates or Zuckerberg family you will have as many tries as you need until you succeed.
And if you've been born in some parts of Africa you're almost certainly going to be
SOL
If the successes of the successful really are the result of their decisions, planning, approach, or other action on their behalf, then where the bullet holes wound up on an airplane isn't analogous.
I personally do think that luck has a lot to do with it, but it's not sheer luck, it's recognizing opportunity and capitalizing. Yes, the iPhone wouldn't exist if it weren't for the DoD building GPS. But the DoD building GPS didn't make the iPhone either. Apple made the iPhone, while other competitors tried to make something like it. It was the decisions that led to the iPhone that can teach us about it's success.
Every set of decisions occurs within an environment. The parameters of that environment can be called "luck" if you want, and success within that environment can be ascribed to the environment itself by way of the word "luck." But looking at it that way tells you less about success than the success stories. After you armor the engines and you get more planes making it home, you don't call that luck, you call that good decision making. And you ascribe the success to the decisions, you don't dismiss them as survivorship bias.