Comment by autoexec
1 day ago
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.
Grit, like luck, in necessary but in insufficient.
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.