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Survivorship Bias

xkcd.com

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Re: Survivorship Bias

#61

Post by taway_1212 »

pipio21 wrote: post #24

Like fear, you should take Survivorship bias into account, but it should not dominate you. If you do you will do nothing in life. When I created my first company my parents told me about how hard it was going to be, how few succeed... On the contrary I found it was way easier and natural than studying engineering was, for example, and hundreds or thousands of people could do it. I found most serious people succeed in…

> Like fear, you should take Survivorship bias into account, but it should not dominate you. If you do you will do nothing in life.

Taking a (for example) safe route into early retirement is not "doing nothing". Most of the startup founders will still be working (because X years invested into a failed startup has set them back) when I'll be retired sipping drinks on the beach.

Re: Survivorship Bias

#62

Post by ed_balls »

AJRF wrote: post #5
tempodox wrote: post #2

Humans just seem to be wired for cargo cult. If I make the same mistakes as the one who got unreasonably lucky, I'll end up in the same improbable spot.

What if we humans had a predisposition to "Cargo-Cult" in order to strive to advance our race? Some sort of memetic gene. A sort of selfish gene if you will. People would argue striving to be like a TED speaker or Kim Kardashian or (INSERT_CELEB_NAME_HERE) is superficial, dumb and shallow. Yet those people are better positioned to survive given our society doesn't change. I would be interested to see if their was som…

mirror neurons

Re: Survivorship Bias

#63

Post by bartkappenburg »

majani wrote: post #38

I believe that success does largely depend on capitalizing on lucky breaks. However, I also believe that each and every one of us gets lucky breaks. What matters is can you spot lucky breaks,and when you do spot them, how do you react? I think it's very possible to train yourself to have the awareness to be able to analyze situations, recognize lucky breaks frequently and just run with them. In a word, you could call…

“Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity"

Re: Survivorship Bias

#64

Post by arethuza »

thenomad wrote: post #43
ux-app wrote: post #23

Most people are missing the point a bit here. Survivorship bias doesn't relate to people who worked hard, improved themselves and now earn 1-10MM/yr. There are loads of stories like that. Survivorship bias is "Zuck did X, Y and Z, if I do the same then I'll be a multi-billionaire too!" Following the playbook of those that made it into the top 0.001% is foolish and does not properly account for the large part luck pla…

I would agree. One of the things I tell students is that studying success stories is extremely valuable, but only if you do it the right way. You're looking for two things: 1) Trends. 2) Ideas. Not blueprints. (On the med school survivorship bias comment: I don't know about the US medical system, but every other high-earning profession I'm aware of has a significant failure rate. Don't go to law school in the UK assu…

I don't know about the rest of the UK but in Scots law a surprisingly low percentage of students from the top law schools even manage to get trainee places.

My wife is a fairly successful lawyer and she was adamant that she wouldn't encourage our kids to go into law - too brutal and the probability of success too low to make it worth it. The other nasty secret is that a lot of people who are partners at smaller firms actually have a terrible income - but the are desperate for "partner" status that they will do anything.

Edit: Even the old requirements of being very posh and/or stinking rich aren't enough to make it to partner these days...

Re: Survivorship Bias

#65

Post by 989throwaway66 »

arximboldi wrote: post #28
pipio21 wrote: post #24

Like fear, you should take Survivorship bias into account, but it should not dominate you. If you do you will do nothing in life. When I created my first company my parents told me about how hard it was going to be, how few succeed... On the contrary I found it was way easier and natural than studying engineering was, for example, and hundreds or thousands of people could do it. I found most serious people succeed in…

> It is not that hard to become a millionaire, way easier than being a salaried person Sure. If it is not so hard, everyone would do it. If everyone was a millionaire, who would do actual unpleasant work? Who would clean, run hospitals, build infrastructure? Who would work for your startup so you can make money? Your comment is such an example of survivorship bias! Capitalism is a competition. You won, good for you.…

I am a small business owner, doing unpleasant work. My business has been doing well, exactly because it is unpleasant: a lot of people want to outsource what I do, even if it is a bit expensive.

I also have found that many people are OK to do some jobs for me that I find really really unpleasant. You need to find the right person for the right "unpleasant" though. This is the beauty of capitalism.

And I am now a millionaire. And when I describe what I do, people yawn and don't want to do it. Even if I find it quite darn interesting.

Beware survivorship bias: I strongly believe it is much easier, and way most likely, to become a millionaire if you set your mind to become a millionaire, and not a billionaire. Many more ways and options. No need for a wild unproven new idea.

Re: Survivorship Bias

#66

Post by pg314 »

ux-app wrote: post #23

Most people are missing the point a bit here. Survivorship bias doesn't relate to people who worked hard, improved themselves and now earn 1-10MM/yr. There are loads of stories like that. Survivorship bias is "Zuck did X, Y and Z, if I do the same then I'll be a multi-billionaire too!" Following the playbook of those that made it into the top 0.001% is foolish and does not properly account for the large part luck pla…

> There's no survivorship bias in going to med school, becoming a specialist and then earning 400k/yr.

There is, just not as pronounced as in the lottery example. You ignore all the students who failed or dropped out of med school, didn't make the cut to become a specialist, or had to take a job that didn't make 400k/yr.

Re: Survivorship Bias

#67

Post by agentgt »

ux-app wrote: post #23

Most people are missing the point a bit here. Survivorship bias doesn't relate to people who worked hard, improved themselves and now earn 1-10MM/yr. There are loads of stories like that. Survivorship bias is "Zuck did X, Y and Z, if I do the same then I'll be a multi-billionaire too!" Following the playbook of those that made it into the top 0.001% is foolish and does not properly account for the large part luck pla…

I don't know what the bias is called but there is this belief that many successful people have or try to bestow that they "did it all themselves" and "you can too".

And in generally many people actually believe this. That is the "self made man" story. Many people believe that the starting point doesn't matter. That outside help doesn't matter. That ash to riches is possible and happens often but the reality is this exceedingly not true at all.

> Survivorship bias is "Zuck did X, Y and Z, if I do the same then I'll be a multi-billionaire too!"

> There's no survivorship bias in going to med school, becoming a specialist and then earning 400k/yr.

And if you ask a great majority of these people they will actually believe that hard work was a majority of their success but I firmly believe it is more analogous to as they say in real estate "location location location". Right parents , timing and money probably made the mass difference.

Consequently the survivorship bias is even worse because everyones success story is going to have to be fairly different because the vast majority of us come from a wide array of backgrounds and starting points.

Re: Survivorship Bias

#68

Post by UK-AL »

pipio21 wrote: post #24

Like fear, you should take Survivorship bias into account, but it should not dominate you. If you do you will do nothing in life. When I created my first company my parents told me about how hard it was going to be, how few succeed... On the contrary I found it was way easier and natural than studying engineering was, for example, and hundreds or thousands of people could do it. I found most serious people succeed in…

This is literally a textbook example survivorship bias.

I have known people start companies who do everything right. Have studied all literature, hired great people. Still failed.

I have known who do have the first clue about running business, fumbled their way around. Tried do everything themselves. Yet Succeeded.

To the last guy, entrepreneurship is easy and everyone can do it. To the first guy it is hardest thing ever.

Re: Survivorship Bias

#69

Post by taneq »

ux-app wrote: post #23

Most people are missing the point a bit here. Survivorship bias doesn't relate to people who worked hard, improved themselves and now earn 1-10MM/yr. There are loads of stories like that. Survivorship bias is "Zuck did X, Y and Z, if I do the same then I'll be a multi-billionaire too!" Following the playbook of those that made it into the top 0.001% is foolish and does not properly account for the large part luck pla…

> There are loads of stories like that.

Not compared with the loads of stories of people who worked hard, improved themselves, and still don't earn anywhere near $1M/yr. Otherwise thinking that those successes have some meaningful advice to offer wouldn't be survivorship bias, it'd actually be correct.

> Following the playbook of those that made it into the top 0.001% is foolish and does not properly account for the large part luck played in their success.

Exactly. As some guy once said, Taylor Swift telling you to put everything into your dreams of becoming a pop star is like a lotto winner telling you to spend your life savings on lotto tickets (a la the original comic).

Re: Survivorship Bias

#70

Post by taneq »

pipio21 wrote: post #24

Like fear, you should take Survivorship bias into account, but it should not dominate you. If you do you will do nothing in life. When I created my first company my parents told me about how hard it was going to be, how few succeed... On the contrary I found it was way easier and natural than studying engineering was, for example, and hundreds or thousands of people could do it. I found most serious people succeed in…

> Like fear, you should take Survivorship bias into account, but it should not dominate you. If you do you will do nothing in life.

I think it helps to consider which things done by successful people were necessary. Don't worry so much about whether they were sufficient, because that's going to involve a whole bunch of luck as well. But you can't win if you don't play.

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