Ponyboy
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2022–2025
0:13 · 137K views · Apr 23, 2016
A very short clip from Star Trek: The Next Generation's 'Peak Performance' in which Picard says it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. It is a single quotable moment about how outcomes are not fully in your control.
HN uses it as a quip or shorthand to illustrate that randomness and circumstance can decide outcomes regardless of skill.
3 comments from Hacker News
> people who do super extraordinary things are extraordinary themselves Nothing I said contradicts this. I even agree. The problem is the inverse. You imply that people who do not do extraordinary things are not themselves extraordinary. You can be extraordinary but shit out of luck. You can't rise to the top by just being the best, you also need and the right support. Take for example any startup. Good luck getting to scale without that. Eventually someone needs to take a chance on you. This is something VCs even know. They invest broadly because a small percentage will be big hits. It's because things fall along a power distribution rather than a normal. The upside is unbounded. Most will lose, for many reasons, including just bad luck. Or I'll let Picard say it > It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life Its because random elements exist in life. It is not deterministic. If it was then VCs would exclusively invest in unicorns and take no losses. Hindsight is useful but it's also easy to ignore subtle but critical variables this video
> The interesting discussion is how much you should take off the table if the offer is uncapped. 50% for security, let the remaining 50% run. We can spend countless hours modeling the risk and return delta of various percentages and against non correlated asset classes you might diversify into once liquid, but most of life is luck; you can do everything right and still lose. This makes it easy, imho. (not investing advice, just a rando, n=1) Edit: noir_lord indeed! Good eye. this video
sorry for the late response. These words: this video Or rather in text form: >"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life" But it sounds so much better coming from the captain's mouth.