Method and luck arrive together; admitting it is the rarer credential.

observation — attributed to Julius Solaris

Solaris sold his independent media business to Skift in September 2019, on his third attempt after two earlier deals collapsed. Six months later the world locked down. He had cashed out at the precise moment when the next twelve months would prove the business was either worth ten times more or worth nothing. He could not have known which way it would break. He sold anyway. The world broke in his direction. His most revealing line on the record is the four-word response to how he had built a global audience from a desk in southern Italy. I don't know. The willingness to say so out loud, after every credential, is itself the rarer credential.

For independent operators, founders, and platform-builders thinking about the role of luck in their own arc. The observation is most useful as a frame against the temptation to retrofit a master plan onto outcomes that included structural good fortune.

luck, humility, skift-sale, timing