Talent or Luck?

Another intriguing experiment by Duncan Watts reported in the Pennsylvania Gazette is designed to test whether superstar pop musicians owe their success largely to talent or to sheer luck.

Watts set up a website with a collection of new, unknown songs. Visitors could listen to the collection and download their favorites, all for free. Some listeners got to see stats on how many times each song had been downloaded previously, others did not. Members of the former pool showed a clear herd instinct: the choices of early respondents seemed to have a strong influence on those who chose later. Watts repeated the experiment eight times and the same pattern emerged.

Rather than an example of how luck can trump talent, I'd say that this experiment says a lot about how early successes or good first impressions can pay huge dividends further down the line, for people, companies and products alike.

I'm reminded of my experience in high school forensics. Judges tended to be overly-generous in scoring competitors who had established track records as winners. You see much the same thing in sports. In baseball, for example, whether the umpire calls a pitch on the border of the strike zone a ball or a strike often depends on who the hitter is. If he's a star with a reputation for having a "good eye," it'll likely be called a ball. If not, a pitch in exactly the same spot may be called a strike. You see this time and again.

Lesson: get off to a good start at whatever you do, and you are likely to make your own luck in the future.