I really want to see more articles like this on HN. However, this is really "career advice for people at struggling companies." The luck part doesn't get discussed in the way I expected. To me, bad luck is things like:
- You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID
- Despite your best efforts at networking, you simply never meet that magical person who can strap a booster rocket to your career/company
- You don't have a resilient financial and mental safety net in the form of good friends/family early in your career that enables you to take risks, or you got dealt a bad hand in the form of things like dependents or health issues and simply can't afford to take risks
- Despite all your work, you get blindsided by things completely out of your control. Ex. a big company straight up rips off your product/service/side gig or an executive at your company guts your project/department
- You don't have the magic paper credentials to get you through the doors at places you want to go because you didn't know you needed them earlier in life when they were practical to get
These are the kinds of things I want to see tackled with real-world career advice since I think they apply to a lot of people. For every lucky executive or entrepreneur there are many who were unlucky.
- You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID
- Despite your best efforts at networking, you simply never meet that magical person who can strap a booster rocket to your career/company
- You don't have a resilient financial and mental safety net in the form of good friends/family early in your career that enables you to take risks, or you got dealt a bad hand in the form of things like dependents or health issues and simply can't afford to take risks
- Despite all your work, you get blindsided by things completely out of your control. Ex. a big company straight up rips off your product/service/side gig or an executive at your company guts your project/department
- You don't have the magic paper credentials to get you through the doors at places you want to go because you didn't know you needed them earlier in life when they were practical to get
These are the kinds of things I want to see tackled with real-world career advice since I think they apply to a lot of people. For every lucky executive or entrepreneur there are many who were unlucky.