You make a very good point. As PG says explains in [1], in a regime dominated by tail events, if most attempts are a moderate success (and no black swan success

You make a very good point. As PG says explains in [1], in a regime dominated by tail events, if most attempts are a moderate success (and no black swan successes), then the portfolio was probably too conservative. On the other hand, due to limited resources, I get the feeling that most academics are operating in the risk-averse mode. See, for eg [2] -- it seems to be solid advice for succeeding in academia (I'd like to hear counterpoints to that from people who've had an extended/successful academic career), but it seems wholly focused on small predictable improvements. I wonder whether this problem is a consequence of enforcing "accountability" in a regime dominated by fat tails. Maybe we've picked up all the low-hanging fruit in research and we can only hope for slow incremental progress (which is what the management structure is set up to optimize), and we need to come to terms with that and stop wistful discussions about not having black swan successes. [1]: http://paulgraham.com/swan.html http://paulgraham.com/swan.html [2]: http://www.stochasticlifestyle.com/tips-google-summer-code-application/ http://www.stochasticlifestyle.com/tips-google-summer-code-a...