Comment by lacey

How about:

- investing time in things that ultimately do not pay off

- taking risks

- lots of small poor choices that add up

- bad luck (yes, to some extent you can make your own luck but sometimes things are outside of your control)

Honestly I find his list pretty poorly thought through, especially in comparison to the recent blog post by Sam Altman: http://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful