HackerTube.dev

Darius Kazemi, Tiny Subversions - XOXO Festival (2014)

XOXO Festival · 81.9K views · 2014-10-21 · 21:40

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Darius Kazemi's XOXO 2014 talk on releasing 72 weird internet side projects in a year. Framed as 'How I Won the Lottery,' it argues that success needs both luck and buying many tickets.

On Hacker News

HN uses it as the favorite antidote to survivorship-bias success stories, arguing that trying many cheap things raises your odds.

Recommended by 7 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2015–2024

Topics

Search by tags

What people said

psvv · 2023-03 · Strong recommendation

I'm surprised I don't see a reference yet to Darius Kazemi's iconic 2014[1] talk, which is basically riffing on this joke for 10 minutes: [VIDEO] A key takeaway I've kept with me this whole time is the idea of there being two kinds of creative advice: (1) how to buy more lottery tickets, and (2) how to win the lottery. The former is useful, the latter not so much. [1] Wait, 9 years ago? That can't be right.

Read the original HN comment ↗
didntreadarticl · 2023-03 · Strong recommendation

Darius Kazemi - "How I Won the Lottery" - a talk at XOXO Festival (2014) [VIDEO] brutally hilarious

Read the original HN comment ↗
peterlk · 2016-08 · Strong recommendation

This reminds me of one of my favorite talks of all time[1]. Applied to careers, I take the talk as implying that trying things is the secret. After a certain level of experience in your career, you'll know whether you like it. Branching off of that, it might even be the right thing to do to find a new career. One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received is "successful people do stuff. It doesn't matter what that stuff is, just do stuff and you'll eventually be successful". Some people will be luckier than others, and be successful at their stuff at a higher ratio, but overall, the ratio is about the same, and you just need to keep doing stuff. Also, one of my favorite illustrations/cartoons of all time[2] speaks to this point. Basically, if you pursue the same career for your entire life, you're probably wasting your time. once you have your x,000 hours of work in, do something new where you can cross-apply that knowledge into domains that need it. [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK] Edit: sloppy link formatting

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by XOXO Festival, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Matches the configured criteria
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources