Can you give me an example of a very ambitious goal that doesn’t fall under the western definition you posted, and yet, can not benefit from the article?
I get what you’re saying, and I agree that there’s a survival bias for all winners. But the pendulum swings too far if you believe you can’t learn anything at all from winners.
Can you say that, for all winners of any field, there’s no correlation between the winners and the losers that is not attributable to luck?
I’m also amazed how people will take a self-improvement article like this, and take it so personally. Like yes, pg was lucky to have a lot of things work out for them, but that doesn’t mean his advice here (which encompasses more than just “work hard”) is invalid for everyone just because it’s invalid for some people.
There’s literally a note that says the text assumes you’re very ambitious. If you have no desire to work towards some definition of “greatness”, I assume that you’re not ambitious, and the text doesn’t apply to you.
Which is ok! You don’t need to be ambitious, but it also means you shouldn’t take this essay so personally.
Antibiotics and vaccines may not be completely free lunches, but they're very good at what they do.