I'd be willing to bet that grit has a lot less to do with successful founders than luck and/or access to a lot of money. There are way more unsuccessful founders filled with grit than successful ones.
The reason there are so many books on grit is because it's a very compelling lie that anyone can succeed if they just try hard enough without giving up. It's useful for the person who hasn't succeeded because it gives them hope. It's useful for the person who has succeeded because it implies that they earned/deserve what they have because they were better than others or tried harder than others did. These are lies, but they are comforting to a lot of people and so they sell a lot of books. Books that say things like "Be born to wealthy parents, preferably in a rich nation or your odds of success are highly unlikely, then also get really lucky" just aren't going to sell as well.
The thing is, an "unsuccessful" startup founder filled with grit has many side-opportunities after the fact despite her "failure". Founding a startup is so risky that these side benefits are actually a far bigger part of the draw, since success is ultimately just as rare as a winning lotto ticket - compare the number of failed startups with the handful of unicorns, and it's pretty much in the same ballpark.
Because you need effort + the ability to create value, not one or the other. Some people have one but not the other and seek out help to bridge the gap.
Yes, also effort is something a person can influence directly, while ability cannot or only indirectly (education ...) so it makes sense to focus on things people can influence, but but achievement is the ultimate target.
> And why is grit such a good indicator of successful founders?
Based on what? Biographical accounts by successful founders?
Nassim Taleb's Fooled By Randomness [1] covers the topic of mis-attribution of some causal factor X (i.e. grit) to some phenomena (i.e. business success) that can be effectively explained solely by randomness. In the specific case of successfully starting a business, causal factors are often mis-attributed post-facto through a lens that blatantly ignores survivorship bias [2].
is grit not required to make it to land in the survivorship bias pool? If your first failure is too hard on you and you quit, then, by definition, you can't succeed. Maybe grit doesn't count when everything goes your way always. I'm not sure anyone has experienced success without grit, but I could be entertained by anecdotes.
autoexec|2 months ago
The reason there are so many books on grit is because it's a very compelling lie that anyone can succeed if they just try hard enough without giving up. It's useful for the person who hasn't succeeded because it gives them hope. It's useful for the person who has succeeded because it implies that they earned/deserve what they have because they were better than others or tried harder than others did. These are lies, but they are comforting to a lot of people and so they sell a lot of books. Books that say things like "Be born to wealthy parents, preferably in a rich nation or your odds of success are highly unlikely, then also get really lucky" just aren't going to sell as well.
zozbot234|2 months ago
sethammons|2 months ago
wijwp|2 months ago
zajio1am|2 months ago
ronsor|2 months ago
willturman|2 months ago
Based on what? Biographical accounts by successful founders?
Nassim Taleb's Fooled By Randomness [1] covers the topic of mis-attribution of some causal factor X (i.e. grit) to some phenomena (i.e. business success) that can be effectively explained solely by randomness. In the specific case of successfully starting a business, causal factors are often mis-attributed post-facto through a lens that blatantly ignores survivorship bias [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooled_by_Randomness
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
sethammons|2 months ago