5 ms·
It’s good to be aware of survivor bias but the discussion around it has been overdone and leads to pointless defeatism. The airplane example is the canonical e
by waprin 3y ago
It’s good to be aware of survivor bias but the discussion around it has been overdone and leads to pointless defeatism.
The airplane example is the canonical example but also ironic because it’s an example where there was a ton to learn from survivors. Their first takeaway was logically inconsistent but eventually they realized that places without bullet holes were the most important to armor. Because planes shot in other places survived. If no planes survived they’d learn nothing but instead they learned something useful from the survivors.
It doesn’t change that a WW2 fighter pilot would need some luck to survive but if he took the right lessons from survivors and armored his plane in the correct places he’d improve his probability of surviving.
One of my favorite pieces of business advice is since 90% of businesses fail, start 10 businesses and you’ll probably succeed. Of course that oversimplifies things but so does the original statistic . It’s also useful advice that helps you re-frame “luck” as stochastic risk that you can manage. And learning ways to lower probability of failure is a great way to manage risk even if there’s always some element of randomness at play.
- t8sr 3y agoIf 90% of businesses fail and you start 10 businesses, you still have about 35% chance of failing at all 10 of them.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xvedejas 3y agoThis is assuming uncorrelated results too. As you observe more and more of your businesses failing, you would want to update your estimate of your own rate of failure. Each new failure in a string of only failures is slight evidence that your own rate of failure may be >90%, even if it's 90% on average for everyone.
- lisper 3y agoYes this is crucial. If you can’t improve your odds after nine tries then you are doing something very wrong. That does not change the fact that the best thing you can do to tilt the odds in your favor is to choose your parents carefully.
- WalterBright 3y agoThe surest way to fail is to blame your parents.
- selcuka 3y ago> The surest way to fail is to blame your parents. You wouldn't be wrong as they have a very strong correlation [1]. [1] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/parents-income-not-smarts-key-to-entrepreneurship-study-657058 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/parents-income-not-smarts-...
- giantrobot 3y agoYou can have nine businesses all fail for separate reasons. Learn all you want from each failure but the next business might fail in new and creative ways no matter what lessons you apply from previous failures. The 10% chance to succeed is a combination of lots of factors, many of which are completely out of your control.
- dtdynasty 3y agoI also wonder how many of the failed business in the stats already are an entrepreneurs third or fourth attempt. Some repeated attempts may already be factored into the failure rate!
- nothercastle 3y agoLife is probably too short to start 10 businesses
- lisper 3y agoNot if nine of them fail. Also, Elon Musk has done nine and he is only 52.
- Gibbon1 3y agoI had a conversation on an airplane with a lady that read scripts for a movie studio. I learned three things. You submit a script they'll read it for purely liability reasons. Most scripts are garbage. But of the ones that aren't about 10% get bought. So if you're good you can make a living script writing. Some other bit about being a movie producer. Guy said people ask how you can become a producer. He said it's impossible. No one will let you produce a movie unless you've done one before. But if you have even if it is terrible and flops, you're a producer and can get work. Combine those two. If you have the want, low grade cunning, and persistence you can totally make a living starting businesses after your first disaster.
- waprin 3y agoYes I understand basic math but I would implore you to improve your reading comprehension as I used the word “probably “ (which 65% qualified as) and emphasized we can’t eliminate luck but can influence it.
- t8sr 3y agoSir, this is Hacker News. Replying with snarky arithmetic is pretty much the what passes for a bon mot around here. If you don't enjoy that, you will probably (>65% chance) find HN a stressful forum. OTOH, if you assume we're not on average dumb or trying to get a rise out of you, you'll have a good time. If I wanted to be really snarky, I would point out that words like "probably" actually have agreed upon numerical values (give or take), and 65% would often be described as "about as likely as not". [^1] Although it's close to the "likely" range, I will grant you. :P [^1]: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-uncertaintyguidancenote-1.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-uncertai...
- waprin 3y agoYour account is from 2021 so spare me the lecture on the rules of Hacker News. If you don’t want me to assume you have poor reading comprehension skills, don’t leave comments indicating that.
- t8sr 3y agoBeing pissy to strangers on the internet is a choice, friend. I hope whatever is making you feel bad about yourself gets better.
- yesbut 3y agoIf 90% of businesses fail then just put armor on the ones with bullet holes.
- WalterBright 3y agoThe odds of being shot down in a B-17 were the same for the first 5 missions as for the next 25. They definitely had a level of control over their fate.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoThe risk compounds. It's like playing Russian roulette more than once. The risk for each trigger pull is the same. Yet taking that risk repeatedly means your odds of ending up dead are worse the more times you have to play.
- WalterBright 3y ago> The risk for each trigger pull is the same The point of my remark is for B-17 crews, each pull is less risky, because they learned how to avoid getting shot down. For example, at the end of each mission, the crews were required to clean the guns. Some crews on the way back over the channel, would take their guns apart and clean them to save time. One day, my dad said a Junkers was lurking near the airfield, and got behind the crews lined up for landing. Brrp! Brrp! Brrp! and down they went, without firing a shot in return. He said he never dismantled his gun before they were safely on the ground. Crews who successfully survived 30+ missions were often rotated back to the states to train the next crews in how to survive.