Study says being rich is determined by chance rather than intelligence or talent

[Emitdama]

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance

The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.

The distribution of wealth follows a well-known pattern sometimes called an 80:20 rule: 80 percent of the wealth is owned by 20 percent of the people. Indeed, a report last year concluded that just eight men had a total wealth equivalent to that of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people.

This seems to occur in all societies at all scales. It is a well-studied pattern called a power law that crops up in a wide range of social phenomena. But the distribution of wealth is among the most controversial because of the issues it raises about fairness and merit. Why should so few people have so much wealth?

The conventional answer is that we live in a meritocracy in which people are rewarded for their talent, intelligence, effort, and so on. Over time, many people think, this translates into the wealth distribution that we observe, although a healthy dose of luck can play a role.

But there is a problem with this idea: while wealth distribution follows a power law, the distribution of human skills generally follows a normal distribution that is symmetric about an average value. For example, intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, follows this pattern. Average IQ is 100, but nobody has an IQ of 1,000 or 10,000.

The same is true of effort, as measured by hours worked. Some people work more hours than average and some work less, but nobody works a billion times more hours than anybody else.

And yet when it comes to the rewards for this work, some people do have billions of times more wealth than other people. What’s more, numerous studies have shown that the wealthiest people are generally not the most talented by other measures.

What factors, then, determine how individuals become wealthy? Could it be that chance plays a bigger role than anybody expected? And how can these factors, whatever they are, be exploited to make the world a better and fairer place?

Today we get an answer thanks to the work of Alessandro Pluchino at the University of Catania in Italy and a couple of colleagues. These guys have created a computer model of human talent and the way people use it to exploit opportunities in life. The model allows the team to study the role of chance in this process.

The results are something of an eye-opener. Their simulations accurately reproduce the wealth distribution in the real world. But the wealthiest individuals are not the most talented (although they must have a certain level of talent). They are the luckiest. And this has significant implications for the way societies can optimize the returns they get for investments in everything from business to science.

Pluchino and co’s model is straightforward. It consists of N people, each with a certain level of talent (skill, intelligence, ability, and so on). This talent is distributed normally around some average level, with some standard deviation. So some people are more talented than average and some are less so, but nobody is orders of magnitude more talented than anybody else.

This is the same kind of distribution seen for various human skills, or even characteristics like height or weight. Some people are taller or smaller than average, but nobody is the size of an ant or a skyscraper. Indeed, we are all quite similar.

The computer model charts each individual through a working life of 40 years. During this time, the individuals experience lucky events that they can exploit to increase their wealth if they are talented enough.

However, they also experience unlucky events that reduce their wealth. These events occur at random.

At the end of the 40 years, Pluchino and co rank the individuals by wealth and study the characteristics of the most successful. They also calculate the wealth distribution. They then repeat the simulation many times to check the robustness of the outcome.

When the team rank individuals by wealth, the distribution is exactly like that seen in real-world societies. “The ‘80-20’ rule is respected, since 80 percent of the population owns only 20 percent of the total capital, while the remaining 20 percent owns 80 percent of the same capital,” report Pluchino and co.

That may not be surprising or unfair if the wealthiest 20 percent turn out to be the most talented. But that isn’t what happens. The wealthiest individuals are typically not the most talented or anywhere near it. “The maximum success never coincides with the maximum talent, and vice-versa,” say the researchers.

So if not talent, what other factor causes this skewed wealth distribution? “Our simulation clearly shows that such a factor is just pure luck,” say Pluchino and co.

The team shows this by ranking individuals according to the number of lucky and unlucky events they experience throughout their 40-year careers. “It is evident that the most successful individuals are also the luckiest ones,” they say. “And the less successful individuals are also the unluckiest ones.”

That has significant implications for society. What is the most effective strategy for exploiting the role luck plays in success?

Pluchino and co study this from the point of view of science research funding, an issue clearly close to their hearts. Funding agencies the world over are interested in maximizing their return on investment in the scientific world. Indeed, the European Research Council recently invested $1.7 million in a program to study serendipity—the role of luck in scientific discovery—and how it can be exploited to improve funding outcomes.

It turns out that Pluchino and co are well set to answer this question. They use their model to explore different kinds of funding models to see which produce the best returns when luck is taken into account.

The team studied three models, in which research funding is distributed equally to all scientists; distributed randomly to a subset of scientists; or given preferentially to those who have been most successful in the past. Which of these is the best strategy?

The strategy that delivers the best returns, it turns out, is to divide the funding equally among all researchers. And the second- and third-best strategies involve distributing it at random to 10 or 20 percent of scientists.

In these cases, the researchers are best able to take advantage of the serendipitous discoveries they make from time to time. In hindsight, it is obvious that the fact a scientist has made an important chance discovery in the past does not mean he or she is more likely to make one in the future.

A similar approach could also be applied to investment in other kinds of enterprises, such as small or large businesses, tech startups, education that increases talent, or even the creation of random lucky events.

Clearly, more work is needed here. What are we waiting for?

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 : Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610395/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-rich-turns-out-its-just-chance/

A very interesting spin on anything that has ever been said about money, success or wealth!

I don't know what to think about this. The scaling argument which says 1% of the human population shouldn't own 40% of the world's wealth due to them not having IQ's of 200,000 or talent proportional to the highly disproportionate stake of wealth they control is something that will take time for me to digest and think about. Its certainly a novel concept.

Its also very interesting that they attempted to model along lines of standard deviation and wound up with a historical 20/80 wealth distribution. I think this is something which could use more exposure and media coverage. Its not often relatively original or new perspectives like this come along and the paradigm shift which can accompany them can often take decades to be fully appreciated within a pop culture vein.

Well. The study is right. There are lots of rich business men in the world today that didn’t finish up their college. But there are graduates, many graduates that are living in poverty and can’t even feed themselves not to talk of paying their bills. Lots of graduates are living in poverty and there are non-graduates who are very rich. So I believe that getting rich doesn’t have to do with being intelligent or so, it’s all about chances 😊.

[Nanashev]

 Being rich is usually a combination of chance and talent. However, fate and destiny determines whether a person will be rich or poor. Therefore one must
 know thatthere are different ways of becoming rich. Richness is not gonna be achieved on a silver platter.

[lunaelucemauram]

I truly believe that being resourceful and determined along with being open minded and the willingness to consistently learn through mistakes is the ingredients of the success to being rich and chance is only a factor if a person with the said traits know how to grab it. And we should admit that not all that people who joins any market are like this, and that is why not all people will be financially free as they do not change their mind sets.

[b_oo]

While I do believe this true, below average IQ people have very little hope and have a hard time understanding and comprehending, or noticing an amazing possibilities.

[techbill]

Well yeah, even Bill Gates who's very smart, but he was at the right place at the right time in history. And he didn't expect all of this.

[cheann20]

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance

The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.

The distribution of wealth follows a well-known pattern sometimes called an 80:20 rule: 80 percent of the wealth is owned by 20 percent of the people. Indeed, a report last year concluded that just eight men had a total wealth equivalent to that of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people.

This seems to occur in all societies at all scales. It is a well-studied pattern called a power law that crops up in a wide range of social phenomena. But the distribution of wealth is among the most controversial because of the issues it raises about fairness and merit. Why should so few people have so much wealth?

The conventional answer is that we live in a meritocracy in which people are rewarded for their talent, intelligence, effort, and so on. Over time, many people think, this translates into the wealth distribution that we observe, although a healthy dose of luck can play a role.

But there is a problem with this idea: while wealth distribution follows a power law, the distribution of human skills generally follows a normal distribution that is symmetric about an average value. For example, intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, follows this pattern. Average IQ is 100, but nobody has an IQ of 1,000 or 10,000.

The same is true of effort, as measured by hours worked. Some people work more hours than average and some work less, but nobody works a billion times more hours than anybody else.

And yet when it comes to the rewards for this work, some people do have billions of times more wealth than other people. What’s more, numerous studies have shown that the wealthiest people are generally not the most talented by other measures.

What factors, then, determine how individuals become wealthy? Could it be that chance plays a bigger role than anybody expected? And how can these factors, whatever they are, be exploited to make the world a better and fairer place?

Today we get an answer thanks to the work of Alessandro Pluchino at the University of Catania in Italy and a couple of colleagues. These guys have created a computer model of human talent and the way people use it to exploit opportunities in life. The model allows the team to study the role of chance in this process.

The results are something of an eye-opener. Their simulations accurately reproduce the wealth distribution in the real world. But the wealthiest individuals are not the most talented (although they must have a certain level of talent). They are the luckiest. And this has significant implications for the way societies can optimize the returns they get for investments in everything from business to science.

Pluchino and co’s model is straightforward. It consists of N people, each with a certain level of talent (skill, intelligence, ability, and so on). This talent is distributed normally around some average level, with some standard deviation. So some people are more talented than average and some are less so, but nobody is orders of magnitude more talented than anybody else.

This is the same kind of distribution seen for various human skills, or even characteristics like height or weight. Some people are taller or smaller than average, but nobody is the size of an ant or a skyscraper. Indeed, we are all quite similar.

The computer model charts each individual through a working life of 40 years. During this time, the individuals experience lucky events that they can exploit to increase their wealth if they are talented enough.

However, they also experience unlucky events that reduce their wealth. These events occur at random.

At the end of the 40 years, Pluchino and co rank the individuals by wealth and study the characteristics of the most successful. They also calculate the wealth distribution. They then repeat the simulation many times to check the robustness of the outcome.

When the team rank individuals by wealth, the distribution is exactly like that seen in real-world societies. “The ‘80-20’ rule is respected, since 80 percent of the population owns only 20 percent of the total capital, while the remaining 20 percent owns 80 percent of the same capital,” report Pluchino and co.

That may not be surprising or unfair if the wealthiest 20 percent turn out to be the most talented. But that isn’t what happens. The wealthiest individuals are typically not the most talented or anywhere near it. “The maximum success never coincides with the maximum talent, and vice-versa,” say the researchers.

So if not talent, what other factor causes this skewed wealth distribution? “Our simulation clearly shows that such a factor is just pure luck,” say Pluchino and co.

The team shows this by ranking individuals according to the number of lucky and unlucky events they experience throughout their 40-year careers. “It is evident that the most successful individuals are also the luckiest ones,” they say. “And the less successful individuals are also the unluckiest ones.”

That has significant implications for society. What is the most effective strategy for exploiting the role luck plays in success?

Pluchino and co study this from the point of view of science research funding, an issue clearly close to their hearts. Funding agencies the world over are interested in maximizing their return on investment in the scientific world. Indeed, the European Research Council recently invested $1.7 million in a program to study serendipity—the role of luck in scientific discovery—and how it can be exploited to improve funding outcomes.

It turns out that Pluchino and co are well set to answer this question. They use their model to explore different kinds of funding models to see which produce the best returns when luck is taken into account.

The team studied three models, in which research funding is distributed equally to all scientists; distributed randomly to a subset of scientists; or given preferentially to those who have been most successful in the past. Which of these is the best strategy?

The strategy that delivers the best returns, it turns out, is to divide the funding equally among all researchers. And the second- and third-best strategies involve distributing it at random to 10 or 20 percent of scientists.

In these cases, the researchers are best able to take advantage of the serendipitous discoveries they make from time to time. In hindsight, it is obvious that the fact a scientist has made an important chance discovery in the past does not mean he or she is more likely to make one in the future.

A similar approach could also be applied to investment in other kinds of enterprises, such as small or large businesses, tech startups, education that increases talent, or even the creation of random lucky events.

Clearly, more work is needed here. What are we waiting for?

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 : Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610395/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-rich-turns-out-its-just-chance/

A very interesting spin on anything that has ever been said about money, success or wealth!

I don't know what to think about this. The scaling argument which says 1% of the human population shouldn't own 40% of the world's wealth due to them not having IQ's of 200,000 or talent proportional to the highly disproportionate stake of wealth they control is something that will take time for me to digest and think about. Its certainly a novel concept.

Its also very interesting that they attempted to model along lines of standard deviation and wound up with a historical 20/80 wealth distribution. I think this is something which could use more exposure and media coverage. Its not often relatively original or new perspectives like this come along and the paradigm shift which can accompany them can often take decades to be fully appreciated within a pop culture vein.

Well,  I know and I understand what's your point about, opportunities and chances are not always come into our life, and the chances are now born which is the key to success everyone and become a rich. It is the cryptocurrencies business, which is the sharp tools use to all of us, people become rich. And we already know that there is a lot of people especially the bitcoiners or users of bitcoin becomes a successful/rich person, because of the effect of bitcoin business by starting in a small capital invested. But it is not quick and easy to become a rich person by in a way crypto business. We must also adopt the total nature and the flow of crypto businesses.

[gowobonyok]

in theory actually intelligence and talent greatly affect one's success, but in fact luck is also very influential. but that doesn't stop us from learning and hoping for luck. we still have to learn and try.

[ThunderFive]

in theory actually intelligence and talent greatly affect one's success, but in fact luck is also very influential. but that doesn't stop us from learning and hoping for luck. we still have to learn and try.

In my opinion, the people who are the best at their fields always get rich. It's the result of learning and hard working. When you are too good at your skills, there will be some chances for you to get high income. The luck is just a part of it.

People who have luck can be rich, but people who have talent and working hard will surely get rich.

[liseff3]

In my view, to be a rich man's easy with a note that you really want to try and develop your talents and abilities, whatever it's that is important legal and doesn't violate the rule of law and religion. There are several ways to become wealthy, that is by diligent work and often save when there's more money.

[katerinaliisa]

I think that these are hardworking and intelligent people who do not miss their chance.

[Hipag]

Yes, but if you put intelligence and talent together you have more chances to become successful, and don't forget strong determination

[SkustaClee]

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance

The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.

The distribution of wealth follows a well-known pattern sometimes called an 80:20 rule: 80 percent of the wealth is owned by 20 percent of the people. Indeed, a report last year concluded that just eight men had a total wealth equivalent to that of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people.

This seems to occur in all societies at all scales. It is a well-studied pattern called a power law that crops up in a wide range of social phenomena. But the distribution of wealth is among the most controversial because of the issues it raises about fairness and merit. Why should so few people have so much wealth?

The conventional answer is that we live in a meritocracy in which people are rewarded for their talent, intelligence, effort, and so on. Over time, many people think, this translates into the wealth distribution that we observe, although a healthy dose of luck can play a role.

But there is a problem with this idea: while wealth distribution follows a power law, the distribution of human skills generally follows a normal distribution that is symmetric about an average value. For example, intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, follows this pattern. Average IQ is 100, but nobody has an IQ of 1,000 or 10,000.

The same is true of effort, as measured by hours worked. Some people work more hours than average and some work less, but nobody works a billion times more hours than anybody else.

And yet when it comes to the rewards for this work, some people do have billions of times more wealth than other people. What’s more, numerous studies have shown that the wealthiest people are generally not the most talented by other measures.

What factors, then, determine how individuals become wealthy? Could it be that chance plays a bigger role than anybody expected? And how can these factors, whatever they are, be exploited to make the world a better and fairer place?

Today we get an answer thanks to the work of Alessandro Pluchino at the University of Catania in Italy and a couple of colleagues. These guys have created a computer model of human talent and the way people use it to exploit opportunities in life. The model allows the team to study the role of chance in this process.

The results are something of an eye-opener. Their simulations accurately reproduce the wealth distribution in the real world. But the wealthiest individuals are not the most talented (although they must have a certain level of talent). They are the luckiest. And this has significant implications for the way societies can optimize the returns they get for investments in everything from business to science.

Pluchino and co’s model is straightforward. It consists of N people, each with a certain level of talent (skill, intelligence, ability, and so on). This talent is distributed normally around some average level, with some standard deviation. So some people are more talented than average and some are less so, but nobody is orders of magnitude more talented than anybody else.

This is the same kind of distribution seen for various human skills, or even characteristics like height or weight. Some people are taller or smaller than average, but nobody is the size of an ant or a skyscraper. Indeed, we are all quite similar.

The computer model charts each individual through a working life of 40 years. During this time, the individuals experience lucky events that they can exploit to increase their wealth if they are talented enough.

However, they also experience unlucky events that reduce their wealth. These events occur at random.

At the end of the 40 years, Pluchino and co rank the individuals by wealth and study the characteristics of the most successful. They also calculate the wealth distribution. They then repeat the simulation many times to check the robustness of the outcome.

When the team rank individuals by wealth, the distribution is exactly like that seen in real-world societies. “The ‘80-20’ rule is respected, since 80 percent of the population owns only 20 percent of the total capital, while the remaining 20 percent owns 80 percent of the same capital,” report Pluchino and co.

That may not be surprising or unfair if the wealthiest 20 percent turn out to be the most talented. But that isn’t what happens. The wealthiest individuals are typically not the most talented or anywhere near it. “The maximum success never coincides with the maximum talent, and vice-versa,” say the researchers.

So if not talent, what other factor causes this skewed wealth distribution? “Our simulation clearly shows that such a factor is just pure luck,” say Pluchino and co.

The team shows this by ranking individuals according to the number of lucky and unlucky events they experience throughout their 40-year careers. “It is evident that the most successful individuals are also the luckiest ones,” they say. “And the less successful individuals are also the unluckiest ones.”

That has significant implications for society. What is the most effective strategy for exploiting the role luck plays in success?

Pluchino and co study this from the point of view of science research funding, an issue clearly close to their hearts. Funding agencies the world over are interested in maximizing their return on investment in the scientific world. Indeed, the European Research Council recently invested $1.7 million in a program to study serendipity—the role of luck in scientific discovery—and how it can be exploited to improve funding outcomes.

It turns out that Pluchino and co are well set to answer this question. They use their model to explore different kinds of funding models to see which produce the best returns when luck is taken into account.

The team studied three models, in which research funding is distributed equally to all scientists; distributed randomly to a subset of scientists; or given preferentially to those who have been most successful in the past. Which of these is the best strategy?

The strategy that delivers the best returns, it turns out, is to divide the funding equally among all researchers. And the second- and third-best strategies involve distributing it at random to 10 or 20 percent of scientists.

In these cases, the researchers are best able to take advantage of the serendipitous discoveries they make from time to time. In hindsight, it is obvious that the fact a scientist has made an important chance discovery in the past does not mean he or she is more likely to make one in the future.

A similar approach could also be applied to investment in other kinds of enterprises, such as small or large businesses, tech startups, education that increases talent, or even the creation of random lucky events.

Clearly, more work is needed here. What are we waiting for?

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 : Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610395/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-rich-turns-out-its-just-chance/

A very interesting spin on anything that has ever been said about money, success or wealth!

I don't know what to think about this. The scaling argument which says 1% of the human population shouldn't own 40% of the world's wealth due to them not having IQ's of 200,000 or talent proportional to the highly disproportionate stake of wealth they control is something that will take time for me to digest and think about. Its certainly a novel concept.

Its also very interesting that they attempted to model along lines of standard deviation and wound up with a historical 20/80 wealth distribution. I think this is something which could use more exposure and media coverage. Its not often relatively original or new perspectives like this come along and the paradigm shift which can accompany them can often take decades to be fully appreciated within a pop culture vein.

We should use our knowledge and skills for us to become successful person. Work hard is not enough, we should also know how to work smart. There are many opportunities that we can get from patronizing cryptocurrencies.

[FreakSau]

In my view, to be a rich man's easy with a note that you really want to try and develop your talents and abilities, whatever it's that is important legal and doesn't violate the rule of law and religion. There are several ways to become wealthy, that is by diligent work and often save when there's more money.

Indeed in my view, to become a rich man is easy with the note that you really want to try and develop your talents and abilities, whatever is important is legal and does not violate the rules of law and religion. There are several ways to become rich, that is by working diligently and often saving when there is more money.

Or learning to invest our saving money in the right way

[aditasetia123]

chance come from our knowledge.it is not come instantly.by our knowledge we always try to find opportunity that could make us success.try and error make us trained well to face difficulty

[Malya_alkendy]

Rich and Poor is the destiny of the omnipotent. but whether and then we will surrender and be silent, without effort whether the money will come alone to us. fortune that if not in the search also will not come. so besides we try hard, we also need to pray, so we can succeed to become a rich person

[Andrew S]

Partly it's an accident, but without the intellect, it will not work.

[Bosx1ne]

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance

The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.

The distribution of wealth follows a well-known pattern sometimes called an 80:20 rule: 80 percent of the wealth is owned by 20 percent of the people. Indeed, a report last year concluded that just eight men had a total wealth equivalent to that of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people.

This seems to occur in all societies at all scales. It is a well-studied pattern called a power law that crops up in a wide range of social phenomena. But the distribution of wealth is among the most controversial because of the issues it raises about fairness and merit. Why should so few people have so much wealth?

The conventional answer is that we live in a meritocracy in which people are rewarded for their talent, intelligence, effort, and so on. Over time, many people think, this translates into the wealth distribution that we observe, although a healthy dose of luck can play a role.

But there is a problem with this idea: while wealth distribution follows a power law, the distribution of human skills generally follows a normal distribution that is symmetric about an average value. For example, intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, follows this pattern. Average IQ is 100, but nobody has an IQ of 1,000 or 10,000.

The same is true of effort, as measured by hours worked. Some people work more hours than average and some work less, but nobody works a billion times more hours than anybody else.

And yet when it comes to the rewards for this work, some people do have billions of times more wealth than other people. What’s more, numerous studies have shown that the wealthiest people are generally not the most talented by other measures.

What factors, then, determine how individuals become wealthy? Could it be that chance plays a bigger role than anybody expected? And how can these factors, whatever they are, be exploited to make the world a better and fairer place?

Today we get an answer thanks to the work of Alessandro Pluchino at the University of Catania in Italy and a couple of colleagues. These guys have created a computer model of human talent and the way people use it to exploit opportunities in life. The model allows the team to study the role of chance in this process.

The results are something of an eye-opener. Their simulations accurately reproduce the wealth distribution in the real world. But the wealthiest individuals are not the most talented (although they must have a certain level of talent). They are the luckiest. And this has significant implications for the way societies can optimize the returns they get for investments in everything from business to science.

Pluchino and co’s model is straightforward. It consists of N people, each with a certain level of talent (skill, intelligence, ability, and so on). This talent is distributed normally around some average level, with some standard deviation. So some people are more talented than average and some are less so, but nobody is orders of magnitude more talented than anybody else.

This is the same kind of distribution seen for various human skills, or even characteristics like height or weight. Some people are taller or smaller than average, but nobody is the size of an ant or a skyscraper. Indeed, we are all quite similar.

The computer model charts each individual through a working life of 40 years. During this time, the individuals experience lucky events that they can exploit to increase their wealth if they are talented enough.

However, they also experience unlucky events that reduce their wealth. These events occur at random.

At the end of the 40 years, Pluchino and co rank the individuals by wealth and study the characteristics of the most successful. They also calculate the wealth distribution. They then repeat the simulation many times to check the robustness of the outcome.

When the team rank individuals by wealth, the distribution is exactly like that seen in real-world societies. “The ‘80-20’ rule is respected, since 80 percent of the population owns only 20 percent of the total capital, while the remaining 20 percent owns 80 percent of the same capital,” report Pluchino and co.

That may not be surprising or unfair if the wealthiest 20 percent turn out to be the most talented. But that isn’t what happens. The wealthiest individuals are typically not the most talented or anywhere near it. “The maximum success never coincides with the maximum talent, and vice-versa,” say the researchers.

So if not talent, what other factor causes this skewed wealth distribution? “Our simulation clearly shows that such a factor is just pure luck,” say Pluchino and co.

The team shows this by ranking individuals according to the number of lucky and unlucky events they experience throughout their 40-year careers. “It is evident that the most successful individuals are also the luckiest ones,” they say. “And the less successful individuals are also the unluckiest ones.”

That has significant implications for society. What is the most effective strategy for exploiting the role luck plays in success?

Pluchino and co study this from the point of view of science research funding, an issue clearly close to their hearts. Funding agencies the world over are interested in maximizing their return on investment in the scientific world. Indeed, the European Research Council recently invested $1.7 million in a program to study serendipity—the role of luck in scientific discovery—and how it can be exploited to improve funding outcomes.

It turns out that Pluchino and co are well set to answer this question. They use their model to explore different kinds of funding models to see which produce the best returns when luck is taken into account.

The team studied three models, in which research funding is distributed equally to all scientists; distributed randomly to a subset of scientists; or given preferentially to those who have been most successful in the past. Which of these is the best strategy?

The strategy that delivers the best returns, it turns out, is to divide the funding equally among all researchers. And the second- and third-best strategies involve distributing it at random to 10 or 20 percent of scientists.

In these cases, the researchers are best able to take advantage of the serendipitous discoveries they make from time to time. In hindsight, it is obvious that the fact a scientist has made an important chance discovery in the past does not mean he or she is more likely to make one in the future.

A similar approach could also be applied to investment in other kinds of enterprises, such as small or large businesses, tech startups, education that increases talent, or even the creation of random lucky events.

Clearly, more work is needed here. What are we waiting for?

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068 : Talent vs. Luck: The Role of Randomness in Success and Failure

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610395/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-rich-turns-out-its-just-chance/

A very interesting spin on anything that has ever been said about money, success or wealth!

I don't know what to think about this. The scaling argument which says 1% of the human population shouldn't own 40% of the world's wealth due to them not having IQ's of 200,000 or talent proportional to the highly disproportionate stake of wealth they control is something that will take time for me to digest and think about. Its certainly a novel concept.

Its also very interesting that they attempted to model along lines of standard deviation and wound up with a historical 20/80 wealth distribution. I think this is something which could use more exposure and media coverage. Its not often relatively original or new perspectives like this come along and the paradigm shift which can accompany them can often take decades to be fully appreciated within a pop culture vein.

"It is not our fault if we born poor, it is our fault if we die poor" it is the quote of Bill Gates. We should develop our skills in order for us to have to become productive. There are a lot of opportunities that we are getting from cryptocurrencies. We should not waste it for us to become successful person. Becoming rich is not just luck, we can be rich by working hard and working smart.

[hotimbineh]

Partly it's an accident, but without the intellect, it will not work.

smart people is not a person's capital to become rich because getting rich is using the opportunity as small and complicated as anything, fools will become rich if able to use the opportunity, and the last is confidence and confident with our own capacity

[Rakesh_alejandro]

Personally my take on that is yes, it is not determined by intelligence or talent, a bit of chance I can say but  mostly it is about your attitude and determination that would make a big difference. It is not just your way to be rich but to be successful in life, I believe that the definition of success would mean different things to different people, so I believe it is all in our hands, what you did and how you did things would determine where you will be at by being motivated of the why you did it.

I think Most savvy people know what to do for the best and some of them prefer to leave the rich dreams to serve people to make a better world to live, very different when you are an ambitious person, you know chance and take whatever the consequences, just hope to have as much money as you can, which I personally do not move smart ideally.
Yes actually it should be done like that, otherwise this would sound like getting rich just about lucky or not.

[Mahanton]

Being rich is usually a combination of chance and talent. However, fate and destiny determines whether a person will be rich or poor. Therefore one must
 know thatthere are different ways of becoming rich. Richness is not gonna be achieved on a silver platter.

Believing on this words.! It would always matter with chance or shall we say in our own destiny. We might have the knowledge,skills and experience or intellect but if the things wont really follow on the path that you wanted then this would be definitely the reason.No matter how hard you do try it wont really work anytime. Lucky for those people who are born wealthy it would depend if they would utilize those wealth for a better and for more development or just dont care at all because they do already possess everything.