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To all those people screaming "survivorship bias", isn't that what this whole post is about? Like, explicitly in the title of the thread? Of the companies that

To all those people screaming "survivorship bias", isn't that what this whole post is about? Like, explicitly in the title of the thread? Of the companies that became very successful, what were some common traits? That's what this post is about. "Yeah but you only looked at the successful companies." ::smacks head::

xux 13y ago
I think people are pointing out "survivor bias" because the qualities listed aren't unique to successful companies.
MattGrommes 13y ago
The point is that using traits of successful companies isn't useful without looking at unsuccessful companies. Yes, these are all traits of successful companies. But other companies did these same things and failed.
- tvladeck 13y ago
  That's true, but not, IMO, a valid criticism of the article. This article emphatically does not say that if you do the stuff on this list that you will become successful. It makes the implicit claim that if you don't do this stuff you won't become successful. Remember that those two statements are very different, and the second one is valuable even though it doesn't prescribe a path to success.
ghaff 13y ago
There was an extremely popular business book back in the 80s called In Search of Excellence which chronicled a set of characteristics of large successful companies. "Stick to your knitting" and the like. The problem was that there were loads of counterexamples including 1.) Successful companies that DIDN'T stick to their knitting and 2.) Failed companies that did.
- tvladeck 13y ago
  Right. So the question then is not whether the premise is correct or not, but whether the information Sam is putting out is accurate, which is a different thing entirely.
  - ghaff 13y ago
    So you really need some sort of statistical study. (Which is hard/expensive/time-consuming in a context like this.) Otherwise you're arguing by anecdote. Which isn't necessarily bad. Most arguments of this sort are. But they're vulnerable to this counterargument.

xux 13y ago

I think people are pointing out "survivor bias" because the qualities listed aren't unique to successful companies.

MattGrommes 13y ago

The point is that using traits of successful companies isn't useful without looking at unsuccessful companies. Yes, these are all traits of successful companies. But other companies did these same things and failed.

tvladeck 13y ago
That's true, but not, IMO, a valid criticism of the article. This article emphatically does not say that if you do the stuff on this list that you will become successful. It makes the implicit claim that if you don't do this stuff you won't become successful. Remember that those two statements are very different, and the second one is valuable even though it doesn't prescribe a path to success.

ghaff 13y ago

There was an extremely popular business book back in the 80s called In Search of Excellence which chronicled a set of characteristics of large successful companies. "Stick to your knitting" and the like. The problem was that there were loads of counterexamples including 1.) Successful companies that DIDN'T stick to their knitting and 2.) Failed companies that did.

tvladeck 13y ago
Right. So the question then is not whether the premise is correct or not, but whether the information Sam is putting out is accurate, which is a different thing entirely.
- ghaff 13y ago
  So you really need some sort of statistical study. (Which is hard/expensive/time-consuming in a context like this.) Otherwise you're arguing by anecdote. Which isn't necessarily bad. Most arguments of this sort are. But they're vulnerable to this counterargument.