While I agree with the sentiment, I think this text is pushing it a bit to far. There exist mathematic, cultural, psychological and anthropological truths that can help one navigate towards success in the world of humans, it's not all random noise.
For example:
1. Getting yourself organized and goal oriented, focused on what you can control, your behavior and decisions, instead of wasting time fantasizing about the lives of great men and the myriad ways your environment differs from Silicon Valley in the 70s. For example, a simple tool like the "Getting things done" methodology helped me to increase my productivity significantly. Some other tool might work for you, as long as you can stay on goal and deliver.
2. Understanding the exponential curve and the power of compound interest. Wealth is built by capital accumulation via compound interest, you start with just your two hands, reinvest the proceeds in growth and watch you empire grow. Once you accumulate seed capital, everything becomes easier, money is like a superpower and you can direct people around you to work towards your vision.
Cultural norms are strongly favoring linear career goals, ex. becoming a doctor, so it's very hard, risky and counterintuitive to go against your peer group and position yourself on an exponential growth path.
3. Understanding people are political animals, always competing for power and resources. This is true for any organization, team, project, people will obey power and getting and wielding power is a complementary goal to money, one leads to the another. A strong way to accrue political capital is to build networks, meet and keep good relations with many powerful people that can be useful and for which you are useful.
These examples are some very general and powerful concepts that are likely to remain true for a long time and that most successful people use at least instinctively. They are necessary to greatly increase the odds of success, but of course, vastly insuficient to guarantee it.
For example:
1. Getting yourself organized and goal oriented, focused on what you can control, your behavior and decisions, instead of wasting time fantasizing about the lives of great men and the myriad ways your environment differs from Silicon Valley in the 70s. For example, a simple tool like the "Getting things done" methodology helped me to increase my productivity significantly. Some other tool might work for you, as long as you can stay on goal and deliver.
2. Understanding the exponential curve and the power of compound interest. Wealth is built by capital accumulation via compound interest, you start with just your two hands, reinvest the proceeds in growth and watch you empire grow. Once you accumulate seed capital, everything becomes easier, money is like a superpower and you can direct people around you to work towards your vision.
Cultural norms are strongly favoring linear career goals, ex. becoming a doctor, so it's very hard, risky and counterintuitive to go against your peer group and position yourself on an exponential growth path.
3. Understanding people are political animals, always competing for power and resources. This is true for any organization, team, project, people will obey power and getting and wielding power is a complementary goal to money, one leads to the another. A strong way to accrue political capital is to build networks, meet and keep good relations with many powerful people that can be useful and for which you are useful.
These examples are some very general and powerful concepts that are likely to remain true for a long time and that most successful people use at least instinctively. They are necessary to greatly increase the odds of success, but of course, vastly insuficient to guarantee it.