The Wind at Your Back | Yusuf Aytas

When I was preparing for the college entrance exam, I wanted to study computer science because I had watched The Matrix. Yeah, I know, it’s not a big story. The other thing I learned was that computer science involved math, and I was good at math. Beyond that, I was far from being a computer guy.

I wanted to study at Bilkent University. That was my only choice, really. It is a private university, and I needed a scholarship. Fast forward to the exam, and I couldn’t cut it. To get in with a scholarship, I needed to be among roughly the first 500 people out of two million students. I was closer to 1,000, not 500, so I was upset. Very upset.

My entire family wanted me to become a medical doctor. With my ranking, I could choose any medical university I wanted, but not computer science at Bilkent. So I decided to go with medicine, but my dad suggested putting Bilkent first anyway. Every choice after that was a medical faculty.

A month later, I was at Bilkent. That year, enough people ahead of me had chosen different programs, so I got in. My dad’s last-minute suggestion led me to study computer science. The rest is pretty much on the blog now.

When the career story is traced back far enough.

Something Went Your Way

Why did I tell this story? I don’t want to dismiss individual success, but I have come to a conclusion. It’s hard to explain success, or whatever success means in any context, without accounting for the overwhelming effect of luck. Taking luck seriously means admitting that something went your way. I have seen this firsthand many times in my life. The degree to which luck carries us is just insane.

I actually don’t know if luck is the right word. Some people call it destiny. The word does not matter much. Something happened that could easily have happened differently, and the rest of your life continued from there.

I think we assume that people have what it takes, and that is why they become successful at something. That may be true. They usually have talent, but many other people have talent too. We mostly look at the people whose decisions worked. We don’t see the others who made similar decisions, worked just as hard, and got nothing back. Once we know the outcome, the decision starts looking much smarter than it was at the time. When you see someone rise, whether in a career, in life, or however else success is defined, we underestimate how much luck is involved.

I still had to study at Bilkent. I had to learn, work, and do something with the opportunity. But none of that explains why this particular path remained open after I thought it had already closed.

Luck Compounds

When you are lucky enough to get one good job, it becomes easier to get the next one. When I got the job at AWS, it became much easier to get another job. I was in Türkiye and required visa sponsorship. Only a handful of companies offered that. AWS was one of them, and it opened more doors later. Being at AWS early definitely looked good on my CV. So this created a path that otherwise might not have been possible.

But how did I get there?

I studied at a prestigious university where people around me were also getting similar jobs and they were competitive. I remember solving Topcoder problems, which obviously helped me get into better shape for algorithms and data structures.

How did I get to that university? That goes back to how I started, right?

So it compounds. People often see luck as a point in time, but it is not. The first break does not stay where it happened. One good outcome changes what becomes available next. It becomes experience, reputation, and evidence that someone else can use to give you another opportunity. After a while, the humble beginnings fade, and the career looks as though it was planned but it wasn’t.

The opposite compounds too. A bad first job, a rejected visa, a health problem, or entering the market at the wrong time can keep narrowing the next choice long after the original event has passed. Later, the result may look like poor judgment or lack of ambition. Sometimes shit lands at exactly the moment that ends up defining the rest of someone’s life.

Different Lives Have Different Costs

We also have different lives, different health, and different people around us. Some people are lucky enough to encounter people they grow with, while others encounter people who make them stagnate or go downhill. I’ve been on both sides, so I know what each feels like. That also paves the road for what comes later.

I have friends I have asked for help when I needed it, mentally and financially. That is a privilege, and it is luck too. I value those friendships, but I cannot pretend I planned exactly who would enter my life or that they would be there when I needed them.

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