Alexander the Great won Persia, but only after 10 years of dire struggle. His was unable to reproduce this success in India. The meta lesson is that anecdotes

Alexander the Great won Persia, but only after 10 years of dire struggle. His was unable to reproduce this success in India. The meta lesson is that anecdotes are not wisdom. Smaller armies sometimes defeat bigger armies, but they mostly don't. Over enough trials, there will be some stories of success in the face of failure, some interesting enough to become legends. You should make decisions against the aggregate data, not selectively interesting data points. Alexander is an epic exception, hence "the Great". Even though he succeeded, that doesn't mean it was wise of him to risk death and possible subsequent collapse of his civilization.