If he didn't say or imply that, his advice would be discounted as that of a (probable) loser.

I suppose a truer test of character would have been if I had not had one big win fall into my lap that offset all the non-wins. But one of the messages I was hoping to convey is that one's life trajectory includes a lot of randomness. The best you can hope to do through volitional action is slightly tilt the odds in your favor. But that might be enough.

One point in your story that I think is worthy of kudos is that you left Google. I’m not sure how certain the riches were at that point, but presumably you could have chosen to just ride that wave longer. That’s a really hard thing to do.

Thanks, but my motives for leaving were a lot less kudo-worthy than you might think. When I left in October 2001, success was far from certain. If I knew then what I know now I probably would have stayed, and I probably would have put a lot more effort into climbing the (very steep!) learning curve.

Gotta build stuff bro