Key Takeaways
- First Law – Performance drives success but when performance can’t be measured, networks drive success
- Success is not about you, but about us
- Performance is of course important but success doesn’t just come from that. It comes from how people react to your performance, it’s a holistic view, it’s collective.
- The collective nature of success means we have to understand what networks were part of and how they react to our performance
- Performance and ambition are key. Feeling like you belong and working hard to get there predict success
- While in the vast minority, there was a group of artists who was able to break through from a smaller niche into the mainstream. What set them apart was that they relentlessly shopped around and exhibited at different locations, geographies and galleries, and weren’t loyal to any one process. This allowed them to be open minded and opportunistic to make the most of opportunities when they came around
- Hunting for answers invariably uncovers more questions
- Second law- performance is bounded but success is unbounded
- Because performance is bounded, much success lies in nonverbal, non-performance related things. Details and personality characteristics and quirks that help you stand out above the competition. Rather than considering these things as silly or unfair, understand that they are crucial.
- Performance is defined by bell curves, where success is defined by power laws
- Success has multiple vectors from wealth to fame to distribution and more. However, in order to gain the economic benefits of superstardom, your talents must be able to scale. In other words, they must be able to be easily and cheaply distributed to the masses.
- Superstars negatively impact the performance of those who compete at a similar level (but not of lower level players)
- Third Law – previous success x fitness = future success
- Success breeds success, and this leads to preferential attachment and the Matthew effect
- There is a huge and important ROI on the first like the first comment the first donation, and while subsequent ones help as well. A quick first endorsement is a big deal.
- Quality defies social influence
- Popularity and excellence are hopelessly entangled. Wouldn’t it be nice to find a good hotel rather than one that is crowded? Counterintuitively, research has found now that the more online ratings something has, the further it strays from its true fitness
- It’s often about perception, not performance
- Encourage independent choices and decision making to get a better sense of true fitness
- Often it’s the first reviews, unaffected by peers, that best capture a product’s true fitness.
- Fourth Law – While team success requires diversity and balance, a single individual will receive credit for the group’s achievement
- The fittest products are built by teams but honed by the vision of a single individual. You need the spontaneous contributions of a diverse and trusting team alongside the direction of a visionary leader
- Talent matters up to appoint, but there is a very real problem when you have too much talent on any one team. What matters is having sufficient talent, and the ability for the team to build trust and have equal opportunity to contribute coupled with a leader who has a high bar and compelling vision.
- Fifth law – with persistence, success can come at anytime
- Creativity has no age but productivity does
What I got out of it
- A profoundly deep yet practical book for how to think about success and how to incorporate it into your thinking and life.
