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Talent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure

A. Pluchino. A. E. Biondo, A. Rapisarda

2018 · arXiv

Psychology
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From the abstract

The largely dominant meritocratic paradigm of highly competitive Western cultures is rooted on the belief that success is due mainly, if not exclusively, to personal qualities such as talent, intelligence, skills, efforts or risk taking. Sometimes, we are willing to admit that a certain degree of luck could also play a role in achieving significant material success. But, as a matter of fact, it is rather common to underestimate the importance of external forces in individual successful stories. It is very well known that intelligence or talent exhibit a Gaussian distribution among the population, whereas the distribution of wealth - considered a proxy of success - follows typically a power law (Pareto law). Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale, and the scale invariant distribution of outputs, suggests that some hidden ingredient is at work behind the scenes. In this paper, with the help of a very simple agent-based model, we suggest that such an ingredient is just randomness. In particular, we show that, if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by mediocre but sensibly luckier individuals. As to our knowledge, this counterintuitive result - although implicitly suggested between the lines in a vast literature - is quantified here for the first time. It sheds new light on the effectiveness of assessing merit on the basis of the reached level of success and underlines the risks of distributing excessive honors or resources to people who, at the end of the day, could have been simply luckier than others. With the help of this model, several policy hypotheses are also addressed and compared to show the most efficient strategies for public funding of research in order to improve meritocracy, diversity and innovation.

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16 selected excerpts · 16 total mentions

DecayingOrganic
Strong recommendation · rule
"The largely dominant meritocratic paradigm of highly competitive Western cultures is rooted on the belief that success is due mainly, if not exclusively, to personal qualities such as talent, intelligence, skills, smartness, efforts, willfulness, hard work or risk taking. Sometimes, we are willing to admit that a certain degree of luck could also play a role in achieving significant material success. But, as a matter of fact, it is rather common to underestimate the importance of external forces in individual successful stories. It is very well known that intelligence (or, more in general, talent and personal qualities) exhibits a Gaussian distribution among the…
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population, whereas the distribution of wealth - often considered a proxy of success - follows typically a power law (Pareto law), with a large majority of poor people and a very small number of billionaires. Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale (the average talent or intelligence), and the scale invariant distribution of outputs, suggests that some hidden ingredient is at work behind the scenes." I would highly recommend people here to take a look at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068
Original comment The annoying habits of highly effective people
laughingman2
Recommendation · rule
There is this interesting paper that evaluates role of luck and talent in outcome. https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 " The largely dominant meritocratic paradigm of highly competitive Western cultures is rooted on the belief that success is due mainly, if not exclusively, to personal qualities such as talent, intelligence, skills, efforts or risk taking. Sometimes, we are willing to admit that a certain degree of luck could also play a role in achieving significant material success. But, as a matter of fact, it is rather common to underestimate the importance of external forces in individual successful stories. It is very well known that intelligence or talent exhibit a…
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Gaussian distribution among the population, whereas the distribution of wealth - considered a proxy of success - follows typically a power law (Pareto law). Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale, and the scale invariant distribution of outputs, suggests that some hidden ingredient is at work behind the scenes. In this paper, with the help of a very simple agent-based model, we suggest that such an ingredient is just randomness. In particular, we show that, if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by mediocre but sensibly luckier individuals. As to our knowledge, this counterintuitive result - although implicitly suggested between the lines in a vast literature - is quantified here for the first time. It sheds new light on the effectiveness of assessing merit on the basis of the reached level of success and underlines the risks of distributing excessive honors or resources to people who, at the end of the day, could have been simply luckier than others. With the help of this model, several policy hypotheses are also addressed and compared to show the most efficient strategies for public funding of research in order to improve meritocracy, diversity and innovation."
Original comment On Cumulative Advantage and How to Think About Luck
toomuchtodo
Neutral mention · rule
> Nothing quite dampens your belief in hard work paying off Such a belief was not grounded in data to begin with. Like a religion, its based in faith. Humans are tricky, emotion and vibe driven; suboptimal mental models die hard. Humans want to believe in free will, they want to believe that their success was because of hard work and not luck. Older cohorts benefited from a golden period in US macro history that will not repeat. They were born at the right time, acquired assets at the right time, and had little job competition with great comp and working arrangements (single income could support a family of four, a single family home, etc). We are in a much different,…
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punishing macro now. Asset prices are high, opportunities for income needed above basic needs are low, and youth unemployment is higher than the aggregate. 49% of young adults live at home, up 12 points since 2019. An economist says the fallout will reshape marriage, kids, and home-buying - https://fortune.com/2026/07/09/half-young-adults-live-home-f... | https://archive.today/1uB8d - July 9th, 2026 (Federal Reserve survey: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2026-economic-we...) > The data comes from the Fed’s Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households, which found that 49% of adults ages 18 to 29 live with their parents, and another 47% of adults in that same age group received help from someone outside their household to pay an expense—money toward a cell phone bill, general living expenses, or housing costs. Notably, those aren’t the same population, according to Laura Ullrich, director of economics at Indeed Hiring Lab, who has studied household formation trends for years. “You’ve got to think about this as a Venn diagram,” Ullrich told Fortune. “Forty-nine percent of them are living at home. 47% of them are getting help from someone outside their household, which doesn’t include those living at home. There’s a lot of adult children getting financial support from their parents.” 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937288 - July 2026 31% of Wealth Owned by People Over 70 - https://www.apolloacademy.com/31-percent-of-wealth-owned-by-... - December 7th, 2025 The housing crisis is pushing Gen Z into crypto and economic nihilism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46079617 - November 2025 Why millennials feel hopeless about the economy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062082 - November 2025 Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119317 - May 2025 (Report: https://www.lisep.org/mql) Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34086622 - December 2022 https://www.cato.org/blog/81-say-they-cant-afford-pay-higher... - April 14th, 2025 ("A recent survey by the Cato Institute and YouGov paints a troubling picture: 62 percent of Americans aged 18–29 say they hold a “favorable view” of socialism, and 34 percent say the same of communism.") https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-rol... ("The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized") https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/01/144958/if-youre-... | Ref: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 ("Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure") https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/analysis-i... ("Analysis: If you’re rich, you’re more lucky than smart. And there’s math to prove it") https://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-you-realize-how-much-... ("When you realize how much luck goes into investing, you might change your methods") Brain structure in Republicans has a delta from others (tldr larger amygdala), so while it's not surprising it took a while for the mental model->reality convergence to occur, it's nice to have data showing it to be the case. We will all need to be on the same page politically to try to fix this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48634883 (citations) Republicans also tilt older in the electorate. Pew Research: Age, generational cohorts and party identification - https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/age-generati... - April 9th, 2024 https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024... ("update your priors and operate as aggressively data driven as possible," it whispered, from its perch on the knowledge graph)
Original comment Americans – including many Republicans – are losing faith in capitalism
rojobuffalo
Neutral mention · rule
Agreed. If you, as the interviewer, can't ascertain an applicant's ability to do the job, after chatting with them for an hour or two, you aren't qualified to hire for that position. The idea that you can pinpoint someone's skill level (and estimate their performance potential) through additional hours-long exams is arrogant. Job performance has more to do with the environment than the incoming skill set. When it comes to promotions, there was a paper this year that won an Ig Nobel prize, which made the case that promotions are awarded at worse-than-random https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.07068.pdf
Original comment Against All Applications
lioeters
Neutral mention · rule
> ECONOMICS PRIZE [ITALY] > Alessandro Pluchino, Alessio Emanuele Biondo, and Andrea Rapisarda, for explaining, mathematically, why success most often goes not to the most talented people, but instead to the luckiest. > REFERENCE: “Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure,” Alessandro Pluchino, Alessio Emanuele Biondo, and Andrea Rapisarda, Advances in Complex Systems, vol. 21, nos. 3 and 4, 2018. <https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068> > This is the second Ig Nobel Prize awarded to Alessandro Pluchino and Andrea Rapisarda. The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize for Management was awarded to Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random. https://improbable.com/ig/winners/
Original comment Ig Nobel 2022 in Economics: Talent vs. Luck
bko
Neutral mention · rule
My main issue with this narrative that work hard != success is that it looks at the upper tier of a profession. You don't have to be a CEO or a professional hockey player to be successful. It's trendy to say this for some reason, but the people saying it don't believe it. The author of the post literally has 3 degrees (undergrad, masters and MBA). He works as VP and head of M&A of a $5.2bn company. He doesn't believe this crap. He's worked hard and probably prides himself on being successful. But he peddles this crap on LI for some reason to discourage others from having any hopes or ambitions. Why? And it's backed up by mostly BS: > How about the role that luck plays in…
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career success? Three Italian professors created a model to track the success of 1,000 individuals over a series of lucky and unlucky events spanning 40-year careers. The result? Papers like this get thrown around a lot as evidence of something. I was curious about this one since I don't know how you can measure "talent". He made it sound like a longitudinal study. If you actually read the paper [0], it amounts to nothing more than someone creating a model of the world as they think it is, run the simulation, say the world looks different than the simulation I just made up, so something. Here are their assumptions: > We consider N individuals, with talent Ti (intelligence, skills, ability, etc.) normally distributed in the interval [0, 1] around a given mean mT with a standard deviation σT , randomly placed in fixed positions within a square world (see Figure 1) with periodic boundary conditions (i.e. with a toroidal topology) and surrounded by a certain number NE of ”moving” events (indicated by dots), someone lucky, someone else unlucky (neutral events are not considered in the model, since they have not relevant effects on the individual life) It makes for a nice headline, but this isn't science. [0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.07068.pdf
Original comment Why Success is more Luck than Hard Work
elcritch
Neutral mention · rule
> I personally like Michael Pettis's argument that continued economic growth depends on increasing economic demand through redistributing wealth from capital (or more generally the wealthy) to labor [3], so I am skeptical of reforms that stop taxing capital. This is an important point, and is misunderstood in (US) politics and deabtes, IMHO. Supporting capitalism and taxation aren't mutually exclusive positions. Well thought out taxation is crucial to balance the inherent network effects of large corporations. There's huge network effects, especially in tech [1], that leads to less ability for smaller firms or new players to compete. If anything, I'd wager that…
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appropriate taxation of network effects is crucial to a well functioning capitalist society, especially as so much of success is due to luck and network effects in addition to hard work and talent [2]. Just because you have capital doesn't mean you have capitalism, where most any individual(s) can access capital to bring about new companies and products. The trick is defining empirically and scientifically sound taxation measures rather than giving into simplistic models of Socialism or Reganism. 1: https://medium.com/@nfx/70-of-value-in-tech-is-driven-by-net... 2: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068
Original comment G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals
pwinnski
Neutral mention · rule
Academic studies have repeatedly found that one of the single biggest determinants in success of just about any kind is luck. It is a very common misconception that hard work results in success, or that talent results in success, but that's looking at the successful from the wrong end. It is rare to find someone very lazy or completely talentless among the most successful, so it must be hard work and talent, right? No, because it's easy to find very hard-working and talented people who are not successful. In fact, according to research[0], the most successful are usually not the most talented, but those of mediocre talent and a lot of luck. [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068
Original comment Six Figures in 6 days
SonOfLilit
Neutral mention · rule
Whenever I see a NetLogo based paper, my suspicion is immediately raised. It's not that multiagent simulations are never good models of reality, it's that they are so hard to get right and so easy to shoot yourself in the foot with and not notice. Nonlinear dynamics are hard. Usually you write a simple model, it does something pathological like diverging to one extreme, you maybe tune the parameters a bit until it does something that fits better with your expectations, then you publish. But the behavior you observed is still pathological, dependent on fine tuning of the model parameters, and has nothing to do with the relationship between the model and reality. I…
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especially panicked when I saw people on HN arguing we should drop all those SIR-based models for Covid-19 and use multiagent simulations instead. Also, NetLogo obfuscates from you that usually what you're trying to model is a very simple one-dimensional equation that could be written in three lines of Python, and that you could see the problems with immediately if you'd look at the actual equation. This is a good example: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.07068.pdf My own review is in Hebrew, but it seems like this is a good one: http://joshuaballoch.github.io/luck-in-life-still-misunderst...
Original comment NetLogo: A multi-agent programmable modeling environment
GcVmvNhBsU
Neutral mention · rule
One of the books that I read last year, I can’t remember which [1], said that the greatest contributor to wealth over the long run is education. My unfounded assumption that explains the reasoning of why you did not experience American families reacting the same way that yours did is: the American belief in rugged individualism. I think that most Americans would say that “hard work” is the biggest contributor to wealth [2]. Being an immigrant, I guess that your family, and probably society they are from, adhered to the former belief, and that is why they took your education so seriously? [1] Could have come from: Can American Capitalism Survive?, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, maybe Enlightenment Now. [2] It could very well be luck: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068
Original comment Children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than US-born
buboard
Neutral mention · rule
But what did the reviewers say about the paper? (http://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068) They used a normal distribution for "Talent", but that's false. There is plenty of evidence that , like everything in life , it's power-law distributed https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/02/19/the-myth-... http://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2018/11/16/power-laws-reve... And the assumtions of the model are rather childish: each random event either doubles or halves your capital (In real life, the multiplier can be much much higher or lower). In fact that's the most flawed point of their tiny "model": by changing the factor 2 and the multiplier distribution they can come up with any…
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result they want. Also, everyone meets lucky/unlucky events in the same frequency - the presumumption that smart people make paths that provide equal opportunity as the rest or take chances with equal frequency is just false. They could at least have compared the lifetime wealth fluctuations with real data for a sense of how wrong thir model is. This is a model of a very simple casino game, not real life. The paper has no discussion, no justification for its parameters, no critical presentation of its limitations , no sensitivity analysis. Good conversation piece, everyone has an opinion on the subject, but the experiment is rubbish.
Original comment The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms
nopinsight
Neutral mention · rule
A key purpose of the original paper is to inform policy to improve public funding of research [1]. Thus, to a first-order approximation, it should reflect realities. However, ... The number of lucky and unlucky events in the paper (figure 5, page 8) are each around 5-7 events per agent on average, where 'lucky' is defined as doubling the capital (or success) accumulated so far and 'unlucky' as halving it. In the real world, how many regular people/scientists have that many career-defining events? Most are quite risk-averse, especially later in their careers. Some entrepreneurs could be exceptions but they are a small minority (single-digit percentage or fewer) [2]. This…
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parameter (no. of big lucky/unlucky events) diminishes the role of talent in the simulation. In real life, most talented people can avoid having 5-7 big 'unlucky' events in their career. This renders the simulations questionable. --> It's like saying talent doesn't matter much for blackjack players who regularly bet half of all their chips. Yes, if one gambles that much, then talent would probably matter relatively little. Do most people do something like that with their career? [3] Research has shown that Log-Normal Distribution could fit data on real-world success as well as Power Law and sometimes better. [4] This suggests that multiple independent factors could play multiplicative roles in success. Talent, luck, grit, location of birth/childhood, educational opportunity, parental guidance, ambition, etc are some candidates. [5] If several factors interacting multiplicatively influence success, the number of individuals who achieve success at a very high level would be quite small, as they need to 'score' high on several of them. This can be modeled quite well with Log-Normal Distribution. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 [2] As an entrepreneur myself, I would avoid betting half my capital unless the potential gain is far, far higher than doubling my capital. I believe most other entrepreneurs think similarly. [3] Note that capital/success appears to be quite broadly defined in the paper, and can be interpreted to include expertise, reputation, and other resources as well as tangible capital. [4] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.0212.pdf "Moreover, even if the data do not rule out the power-law model usually the evidence in its favour is not conclusive – some rivals, most notably the log-normal and stretched exponential distributions, are also plausible fits to wealth data." [5] Note that luck as defined in the paper does not reflect factors like location of birth, educational opportunity, or parental guidance.
Original comment Show HN: Talent vs. Luck – A recreation of the paper's model
giardini
Neutral mention · rule
Instead of wasting time on a (rather biased) critique, read the original paper: "Talent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure" by A. Pluchino. A. E. Biondo, A. Rapisarda https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 Are the rich wealthy because they somehow earned it? Examination reveals that this is not true and that the most extreme cases of wealth accumulation (which show a surprisingly consistent pattern across cultures) are attributable more to luck than to skill. Mark Buchanan examines this in his excellent book "The Social Atom" (pp.172-174): https://www.amazon.com/Social-Atom-Cheaters-Neighbor-Usually... A reference from that book: Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and…
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Marc Mezard, "Wealth Condensation in a simple model of economy": https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0002374 See also Christopher Jencks, Inequality (New York: Basic Books, 1972) which focuses more on the effect (or non-effect) of education on income: https://www.amazon.com/Inequality-Reassessment-Effect-School... If extreme wealth is largely due to luck then I see no reason why government should not lop the "lucky" portion off for its purposes. Of course there will always be argument as to precisely where the line is drawn between luck and skill. Finally we must not forget bad luck, which makes fools of us all. Just as there are those who are super-wealthy due to luck, there are those whose livelihood has been destroyed by luck. I do feel an obligation to help them back onto their feet.
Original comment The Role of Luck in Life Is Still Misunderstood
toomuchtodo
Neutral mention · rule
How did you come to the conclusion that being that wealthy was because of intelligence? Elon has been at the right place at the right time to compound capital through luck, connections, and selling ideas in return for purchase of equity. Most YC companies fail in some way. 90% of startups fail. Were those founders not smart? I think the majority are/were, they just were not lucky enough [1] [2] [3]. If your belief system and mental model cannot internalize that the deciding factor is luck over skill, well, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [4] [5]. Review the data, update your priors and improve the mental model to more closely align to reality. If you don't like the rules, you are free to start…
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your own forum. As long as it’s their forum, it’s their rules. As a guest, I do not complain about the asks my hosts make of me. It would be impolite. Be polite and respectful when you are a guest in someone else’s home. [1] If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance. - https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/01/144958/if-youre-... - March 1st, 2018 [2] Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 : Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 [3] Your Outsized Wealth Is Mostly Due To Luck: Be Thankful! - https://www.financialsamurai.com/your-wealth-is-mostly-due-t... [4] Highly intelligent people are more likely to ditch old habits for better ideas, study finds - https://www.psypost.org/highly-intelligent-people-are-more-l... - June 11th, 2026 [5] Tiarn Burtenshaw, Bradley Walker, Gilles Gignac, Cyril C. Grueter, Nicolas Fay, Individual differences in intelligence and personality guide human social learning, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 253, 2026, 113639, ISSN 0191-8869, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113639.
Original comment Hacker News actively blocking SpaceX IPO submissions
toomuchtodo
Neutral mention · rule
> It sounds as if you have an emotional issue with the idea that people can change their own situation. On the contrary, I am simply data informed. It sounds like you're operating from a mental model that overweighs ability in outcomes. I have provided links below to help you improve and evolve this model. https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/beautiful-minds/the-... ("The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized") https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/01/144958/if-youre-... | http://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 ("Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure") https://ustrustaem.fs.ml.com/content/dam/ust/articles/pdf/20... (2022 Bank…
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of America Private Bank Study of Wealthy Americans: The impact of shifting generational attitudes amid an historic wealth transfer) [Only 27% of the ultra wealthy are self made; 70% of Americans who hold more than $3 million are over 56 years old.] https://www.financialsamurai.com/your-wealth-is-mostly-due-t... ("Your Outsized Wealth Is Mostly Due To Luck: Be Thankful!") > And no, parents or grandparents or country or genetics or whatever are not luck either. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/about/news-room/press-releases-... ("Parental Income Has Outsized Influence on Children’s Economic Future") https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/7122514681658661... ("Global inequality of opportunity: How much of our income is determined by where we live?") https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-origins-of-menta... | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000292972... ("Genes Influence Children’s Success, Directly and Indirectly") > Choosing a suitable mate is about as close to the meaning of life as we have. ~43% of first marriages fail, ~60% of second marriages, ~73% third marriages. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/divorce/divorce-statist... Good luck.
Original comment Just Be Rich (2021)
toomuchtodo
Neutral mention · rule
> They aren't facts. The number of millionaires in the U.S. has exploded. Many are benefiting from the markets. It's not luck. Are you sure it's not luck? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-rol... ("The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized") https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/01/144958/if-youre-... | Ref: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 ("Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure") https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/analysis-i... ("Analysis: If you’re rich, you’re more lucky than smart. And there’s math to prove it") https://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-you-realize-how-much-... ("When you realize how much luck goes into investing, you might change your methods")
Original comment Private Equity Is Devouring the U.S. Economy

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