Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Success can make people overconfident and blind to potential risks.
In plain terms
Winning often tricks smart people into thinking they are invincible.
What can you take from it?
Stay humble and vigilant even when things are going well.

Where it applies

  • business growth
  • personal achievement
  • team management

Putting it to work

  • review past failures
  • seek critical feedback
  • plan for setbacks

Questions to consider

  • When did your last win make you careless?
  • How do you stay grounded after success?

Another view

Sometimes success genuinely indicates strong strategy rather than luck.

More from Bill Gates

  1. Gary Kildall was one of the original pioneers of the PC revolution. He was a very creative computer scientist who did excellent work. Although we were competit…

    Permalink to quote #9
  2. The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.

    Permalink to quote #11
  3. I laid out memory so the bottom 640K was general purpose RAM and the upper 384 I reserved for video and ROM, and things like that. That is why they talk about …

    Permalink to quote #8

Related quotes

  1. Don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don't doubt yourself.

    Alan AldaAlan Alda quote #3
  2. From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

    Napoleon BonaparteNapoleon Bonaparte quote #6
  3. If you have the choice between humble and cocky, go with cocky. There's always time to be humble later, once you've been proven horrendously, irrevocably wrong.

    Kinky FriedmanKinky Friedman quote #6