This is why having a safety net and resources to try again is so powerful. Given enough chances you will make it, big. That means the #1 factor in success is the number of chances you get to fail and try again, not necessarily how inherently good you are. I try to remind myself of this often. I have been given so many chances, and I took them.

The “one that works out” can also give you a misrepresentation of how the world works and a false sense of how lucky one should expect to be over a long period of time.

At an earlier point in my life, I had been applying to many well-known big tech companies right out of school (not a top school either). I never got a reply from any of them so I ended up accepting a local job with a non-tech company after months of searching.

But I didn’t give up my hopes and kept applying to big tech, and while I did manage to get the occasional interview with some mediocre companies or the random startup, I also miserably failed all of them too.

At some point during my long period of despair at never getting a better job, my very top pick (and arguably one of the best tech companies in the world at the time) reached out to me. Even more miraculously, I somehow passed their interview (the only tech interview I passed in the prior year) and accepted a job there.

I really enjoyed working there. Some of the best years of my life. And my performance reviews were great too, so the imposter syndrome from having failed so many tech job interviews sort of faded into the background. But after a while, perhaps due to the “hedonic treadmill” mentality, I thought I could do better. So I left to join a startup.

Well, the startup failed, as startups tend to do, but what I didn’t expect and what caught me off guard was that I was now back in the same situation I was in right after graduating from college. Don’t get me wrong—having “the name” on my resume now meant I could get at least one chance at an interview about anywhere. But much like the first round that I tried to forget about, I once again failed all the interviews.

Unfortunately, this second time around never procured a “get out of jail free” card.

So I guess my lesson is: 1) there’s a lot of luck involved in these things, 2) if life gives you a winning lottery ticket at some point, don’t throw it away for the chance to win an even bigger lottery, and 3) that famous saying about “the only actions regretted are those not taken” is absolutely, totally wrong—almost all of my regrets in life relate to taking some action I shouldn’t have rather than inaction.

Unfortunately, the "one" which accepts you, is no guarantee of it being the one which "works out" (in the short or long term). My experience is now 4x "found one that ultimately doesn't work out" (each lasting 2 to 3 years).

I'm now taking time out to try to figure out how to escape the confines of the career path I've taken to find something different.

Open to suggestions of entirely different careers that I could switch to that might have higher odds of not being toxic rat-races full of people telling lies and bullshit just to survive.

But broader experience suggests the world of work just sucks these days (and yes, it's these days - our parent's generation had a brief period of doing 9-to-5 jobs which paid well enough to afford homes, have families and social lives and holidays. We don't get that now.). No wonder large numbers of my generation are dropping out of the workforce...

all I need is one SaaS to work out, I've built five of them this year, the fifth one is the one though, I promise.

You've been trying for a long time.

What do you do if the job that makes you an offer doesn't excite you? What if the house that feels like home needs more repairs than you can afford? What if the program that accepts you has crappy funding? What if the person who chooses you has red flags?

Do you say "screw it," cross your fingers, and walk through the door that kind of sucks? Or do you keep looking as long as your resources last you?

We job hop, have multiple hustles. Many people on this board have started multiple companies, sometimes at once, on an ongoing basis. Do you only want just one friend? People tend to have multiple romantic/sexual entanglements, sometimes at once, but generally more than one over a lifetime.

I think this can be a useful maxim to get you to the next day, but in reality it takes a lot more than one of anything for a fulfilling life. We grow and change and need novelty. We are held in a web of interdependent, ever-shifting relationships - with people, businesses, material goods, ecology. I think that generally people are seeking connection in a broader sphere. To be held in community, to have multiple significant identities (mother/wife/boss), to live in richness and abundance where any one thing is not make or break.

A corollary to this, for me at least, has always been: don’t try to fake your way into an opportunity. Be yourself, let people pass on the real you if they want, because you don’t want to land a job where you can’t thrive as yourself. Obviously there’s great privilege in that and sometimes you need to eat shit in order to eat at all, but if you have the option I hope you’re able to wait for the right fit.

Related: You should expect to keep getting "no"s until you get a yes. That means, getting a "no" is actually normal, it's not failing.

I read the title and thought it meant that if you just exercise everything else will fall into place.

I should probably still try that.

On the one hand it is a wholesome article. On the other hand - so much wasted potential of people squeezing out the last bits when competing. Nash equilibria can suck

The article is good, but I am more impressed by how the author has been posting every day since May 12th, 2008.

Bait & switch, though.

“All it takes is for one to work out.” is not the same as "You just need the one [job] that’s the right fit." or "You just need the one [house] that feels like home." or "You just need the one [life partner]."

Author's examples are, spiritually, the opposite of their friend's advice - in fact, "all it takes is for one to work out" is something often said to people who lost hope because they got lost being too picky.

Taking a break from studying for my interview in two days at a FANG company, I checked Hacker News and this article was at the top. I've been studying for this interview harder than any of the others in the past. I feel well-prepared, but there's always the luck factor. I hope this is a sign that this interview will be the one to work out!

I thought HN is supposed to upvote articles that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Does this article gratify intellectual curiosity? I don't understand why these shallow feel-good articles devoid of any intellectual curiosity always get upvoted to the top! There are so many high effort, substantive articles at https://news.ycombinator.com/newest that nobody upvotes!

This St Peterburg paradox. I've just learnt it from Veritasium's last video.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_paradox

Reminds me of Veritasium's recent video[0] on power law distributions.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBluLfX2F_k

Reminds me of AlphaGo

It didn't try to maximise by how much it won, but just that it won. Apparently it changed the meta for human pkayers.

If you have the time for it, the movie/doc is worth watching https://youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y

That’s an aggressive problematic gambler mentality.

This is a great approach! After every opportunity that closed on me another arose, and it always was the better one.

Through these experiences I totally agree, and try to apply it to life, but it's hard, even knowing that it's true. How cool is it for every college, person, job offer, scholarship to want you?

Even though we're looking just for "the one" it's very hard for me to mitigate the feeling of getting rejected, even knowing it was not "the one". Rejection generally hurts, when you care about the goal

You don't need to buy a lottery ticket every day, you just need to buy one on the day you get the winning ticket.

Thanks for the tip buddy!

I basically repeated the same thing to my wife when I was transitioning into software engineering. It’s so true!

Maybe you need only one. I need universal adoration! Everyone must love me!

It's also interesting to consider that we are such adaptative creatures that we will likely settle to a similar level of happiness no matter what the choice.

This is also the strategy of groups trying to pass oppressive legislation.

And its always the last one you try. Just like every lost item is found in the last place you look :-)

Purely poetic advice. If the local economy collapses, you will very much want to move. There's still a 50% chance the first spouse doesn't hold up until death. There are many schools that give out degrees that aren't worth a wooden frame in today's job market.

The corollary to this is "keep walking"... As my mom always tells me.

On a much less optimistic dark humor note, this is the same argument in If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies about a superintelligent AI emerging and being a threat to humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Anyone_Builds_It,_Everyone_...

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this wasn’t about exercising.

A (possible) restatement of the oft quoted "They have to be lucky all the time, we only have to be lucky once" (albeit only the second half)

I read this as: all you have to do is work out.

It also takes just one big mistake to really make things tougher…

I agree with his sentiments and his examples. But my fear is that on a place like Hacker News, people might not understand the difference between his advice and trying to have a successful startup.

>You don’t need every job to choose you. You just need the one that’s the right fit.

When I’m applying for a job, I can apply for multiple jobs at once and interview for multiple jobs over a a few weeks. It’s especially easy when I am both interviewing and working remotely. I don’t have to make excuses to leave work during the middle of the day or worse case fly out for an interview.

The same is true for buying a home, I can put bids in for multiple homes - or in my case just have my homes built in 2003 and 2016. I know the world is different now.

>You don’t need every person to want to build a life with you. You just need the one.

This is one place where of course you can shoot your shot at multiple potential partners and date often. What you don’t want to do is try marriage multiple times if it can be avoided. A bad marriage will wreck every part of your life and a divorce will set you back financially. (Happily remarried for 15 years after a horrible first marriage.)

None of his examples are applicable to starting a business. 9/10 startups fail and even out of those that “succeed” only a small number of those have an outsized return for the founder where they wouldn’t be better off financially working a regular old enterprise dev job for those years let alone getting a job at BigTech.

VCs can make multiple bets at one time and be more assured that they capture the 1/10 startups that succeed than a founder.

There is a huge difference between being able to take multiple chances at once in all of those scenarios and being stuck with the 1/10 choices you make for multiple years.

Another saying i repeat to myself, which if gotten from a friend.

You have already lost, you can only win.

Beautiful piece and reminder.

If you're never done growing, you're never done peaking, nor ever really done trying.

One working out can lead to the next way.

Wishing everyone well who this piece resonated with.

Great article and a timely reminder for many :)

Applicable not just for grad school applications, but also to job apps, startups, and relationships.

Hang in there y'all, all it takes is for one to work out. Keep working hard, kings & queens.

Why are so many people in this thread purposefully misinterpreting the post so they can criticize it? The author obviously doesn't mean you only need one thing per domain to work out in your lifetime, but the present. I.e you don't need two girlfriends at once, even though you might have multiple relationships throughout your life...

Sheesh. HN is grumpy today.

While it’s true that all we need is one to work out, in general we strive to be in positions where we have multiple options, not just hinging everything on one passing chance. Life is less stressful that way, and that’s why people today feel like they are under so much pressure and have little choice over how their lives unfold.

"Is this where you stop?"

Needed this today. Apparently the HN hive mind agreed.

All it takes, is for one to work out.

I'm confused. This just seems like feel-good bullshit advice that only works for people in extremely good circumstances.

There's a false equivalence between -

“All it takes is for one to work out.”

and the following:

- "You don’t need every job to choose you. You just need the one that’s the right fit."

- "You don’t need every house to accept your offer. You just need the one that feels like home. "

The latter assumes that _every_ attempt you make has a chance at being "the right fit", "the one that feels like home". That is not the way things works for 99% of us.