A very wealthy man once told me the phrase, "There is no such thing as luck. 'Luck' is where preparation meets opportunity."
I'm sure he had some random events placed in front of him, giving him an unique opportunity. But he executed phenomenally. And we should not discount that. Many have had the same kinds of opportunities and failed to execute.
That said, I'm always surprised by how people are so quick to discount luck. Or consider a bad thing if they got lucky.
You can be both prepared and have an opportunity and still fail because of factors outside of your control. Likewise, you could be unprepared, flail your way through a solution, and still manage to be very successful at the very end because the stars aligned. Maybe the market was super ripe, your competitors were going through some rough patches, etc.
Success stories are often carefully crafted with a narrative fallacy. I can think of several very successful companies today that would've been sold a long time ago had it not been for the potential buyer rejecting the deal. Or entrepreneurs who have one success, and then were never able to create a majorly successful big startup after.
Luck is embedded into the definition of "opportunity" so the quote is contradictory.
I am invited to an interview for the #3 job at Newgle. There's an earthquake the day of my interview and it's postponed. While waiting to be rescheduled, Barry, the co-founder bumps into a great engineer at a cafe and hires him instead. I never interview. Newgle goes onto become the most valuable company in the country. I stay at Oracle as a senior engineer but never do much else.
I'm sure he had some random events placed in front of him, giving him an unique opportunity. But he executed phenomenally. And we should not discount that. Many have had the same kinds of opportunities and failed to execute.