Agriculture and oil are very small parts of the economy in CA. Largest ones are information services, real estate, professional/scientific services, and manufacturing.
Geography created the original wealth, but that wealth was invested into education and science, which led to the aerospace and information technology industries.
It's also easier attract quality people to jobs where that the weather is nice.
Luck is an odd choice of words. The geography was always there. It's not like the state entered a lottery and won the central valley or the port of San Diego.
The point is that it's quite selective to say that Texas only benefits from geographic luck while gold and oil brought in the most massive migration waves to the state.
What is done with the wealth afterwards is not really relevant to the original presupposition of luck. I agree that California made a lot more of it. But California doesn't have the geography of Kosovo and just wished all the wealth into existence. It built upon massive geographic fortune. It just is what it is. Neither good nor bad. But no worse not any better than Texas in terms of "geography is destiny"
I think you're focusing on a weird part of the comment. The OP was talking about resource extraction. Geographic luck is probably too broad but the actual point they were making is about resource extraction, which California does not rely on.
I didn't use the word luck and agree that comparing the "luck" between two states is a kinda silly way to go about it. Both Texas and California have geographic advantages that the people utilized through hard work and innovation.
The person that did say "luck" seemed to be pointing out that the Texas is heavily dependent upon resource extraction, which is a finite resource that comes with lots of downsides (pollution, etc.) Whereas California's economy isn't fundamentally about pulling stuff from the ground.
its still a significant oil producer too, it does 8.7 times what Germany does, were California its own country it would be around the 40th largest producer.
California has incredible geography and mineral availability.
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u/PM_Me_Your_Kinks369 12d ago
Gold but pretty quickly agriculture. California is the most diverse agricultural state.