Talking Business - Was Steinbrenner Bold, or Just Lucky? - NYTimes.com

I posted a note earlier this week about George Steinbrenner and his financial success with the Yankees.

There was a good follow-up piece in this morning's New York Times about Steinbrenner. In it columnist Joe Nocera suggests that at least part of the Steinbrenner's success was due to luck rather than simply good business skills.

Here's an excerpt:

...What would have happened if {former Cleveland Indians owner} Mr. Stouffer had been sober that December day in 1971, and had said yes to Mr. Steinbrenner? Would Mr. Steinbrenner have been as successful if he had owned his hometown Indians rather than the storied New York Yankees? Or was his success due mainly to the fact that he just happened to buy the No. 1 franchise in the biggest television market in the country — at the exact moment the value for sports franchises was about to take off? To put it another way, was George Steinbrenner a good businessman, or just a lucky one?

Mr. Nocera may have a good point (and I thought the piece was very well-written) but I also believe that luck plays a role in many success stories, both business and elsewhere.

One of my favorite stories involves the early days of personal computers. When IBM entered the PC business in the early 1980's, they made the decision to buy the operating system rather than develop one internally. After some investigation, IBM found there were two companies in the Seattle area that had each developed a workable operating system. One made by a fellow named Gary Kildall. The other was a young kid whose mother Mary was on the board of the local United Way, and so had developed a friendship with Frank Cary, then head of IBM.

So a group of folks from IBM flew to Seattle, and went to see Gary Kildall. Unfortunately for Gary, he had decided that it would be a good day to fly his glider, and so literally was not a home when they showed up.

So the IBMers went to their next stop, a little company called Microsoft headed by this scrawny kid named Bill Gates. The rest, as they say, is history.

Was Gates just lucky? Or was he able to see the opportunity, and aggressively purse (note also: Microsoft did not actually have a workable operating system until right before IBM came to visit. Gates bought the system from a local programmer)?

In the end, I would agree that Steinbrenner was probably lucky, but he also deserves credit for using his lucky break so well.

Talking Business - Was Steinbrenner Bold, or Just Lucky? - NYTimes.com