A tiny number of events produce most of the outcome — so most of what you do is supposed to not matter.
The uncomfortable corollary is the useful one: being wrong half the time is compatible with doing very well, provided you are still present for the few moments that carry the result.
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Typed edges. Anything below the line was authored on the other note and derived here.
example-of →History is driven by a few unpredictable outliers that we explain confidently only after they happen.Housel's investing tails are a concrete, bounded case of Taleb's general claim about history. Same distribution, gentler register.
← has exampleA small intransigent minority with asymmetric preferences sets the standard for everyone else.
The same disproportion in a social system rather than a portfolio: a tiny fraction of the population determines the whole outcome, because flexibility is cheaper to override than inflexibility.
← supported byThe square root of contributors in a domain produces half its output.The same disproportion reached from bibliometrics rather than investing returns. Two unrelated domains converging on the shape is stronger evidence than either provides alone.