
Survivorship Bias: The Tale of Forgotten Failures - feross
https://fs.blog/2019/12/survivorship-bias/
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cyberferret
I've stopped reading books and blogs from company founders who have never had
to weather a storm. If I hear on a podcast intro that "Company X has been
profitable since day 1 and have grown 100% per year for the past decade" then
I usually skip to the next podcast.

I'd rather hear from company founders who have faced months of living on
ramen, and had days of not being able to make payroll, or who have had to deal
with a PR nightmare or a valued staff member having to leave at an inopportune
time.

These are the situations that are part and parcel of most company's day to day
struggles, and people who have never experienced those things (or don't talk
about them at all) really don't have anything to say that I would take time to
listen to.

~~~
koonsolo
According to what I read, all "Company X has been profitable since day 1 and
have grown 100% per year for the past decade" are actually what the press made
of it, and behind the scenes took years of hard work with lots of setbacks and
near death experiences.

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netwanderer3
This is most especially true in sports. For every tennis, soccer, NBA players
that became professional, thousands of others had failed despite the fact they
all started at a very young age and went through the same rigorous training
throughout their lives.

Simply being better did not guarantee that they would make it. Example: Cesc
Fabregas, the former Arsenal captain soccer player, often wondered how he
could even made it into a professional soccer team. He still did not
understand why many of his peers from La Masia Academy back in the days,
despite having more talents and being so much better players than him, just
could not succeed in the end.

Meritocracy is truly a false belief.

~~~
matwood
Because natural talent alone is not sufficient to be the best at something. It
takes time and work. Fans only see the end result, and miss the life
dedication to achieving that result. When genetic talent plus insane work
ethic collide you get people like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron
James. Without a work ethic they all may have made it to the NBA, but I doubt
we would have known their names. You also have people like Steph Curry, who at
least on the surface isn't a genetic freak, but has been practicing basketball
since before he could walk.

 _Knowing he’s ordinary, he’s always trying to improve himself. No one
appreciates the agonizing effort he’s had to make. Now that his years of
training have yielded such spectacular results, everybody’s talking about his
‘god-given talent.’ That’s how men who don’t try very hard comfort
themselves.”_ -Musashi

~~~
lawn
Hard work and talent isn't enough either. We often say that you have to work
smart, and work on the right thing.

People often don't know what to work on, so it's left up to chance. Some will
simply luck into the right way to train.

And this is a good parallel to successful companies: many succeed just because
they're lucky.

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Pandabob
> Examining the lives of successful entrepreneurs teaches us very little. We
> would do far better to analyze the causes of failure, then act accordingly.
> Even better would be learning from both failures and successes.

Any recommendations (books, blogs etc.) on material that actually does this?
The one business book that comes to mind is "Business Adventures" by John
Brooks [1], which ironically might be as popular as it is because it's one of
Bill Gates' favourite business books.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Business-Adventures-Twelve-Classic-
St...](https://www.amazon.com/Business-Adventures-Twelve-Classic-
Street/dp/1497644895)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I've suggested for years, on this site no less, that people share their
failure stories and we could compile them somewhere into a book.

However nobody wants to share them because they are worried that they will be
seen...as failures - a reasonable position to take honestly.

The only people that seem to be happy to share failures are currently
successful people, and they generally don't have either the time or
inclination to wax poetic about their failures.

~~~
sh87
I recollect there was a website that did this [1]. Can't vouch for it. Not
affiliated. Didn't read more than a couple startups.

[1]: [https://getautopsy.wixsite.com/failed-
startups](https://getautopsy.wixsite.com/failed-startups)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
There are certainly the graveyard sites out there, but I'm talking about first
person stories from founders that detail why they think they failed.

~~~
sh87
Gotcha.

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ChuckMcM
This is something I work hard to mitigate. For systems I'm trying to improve I
keep records of every decision and outcome in an effort to get a better
picture of which ones helped and which ones didn't. For many I also write down
what I'm thinking and why I'm making that decision that way. This allows
'future me' to reconstruct the mental model of 'past me' and more clearly see
what I missed but could have seen, and what I missed and I could not have
seen.

It takes time and it can be boring but it can also be amazingly insightful
too.

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mark-r
I was happy to see mention of the airplane reinforcing story, because this
whole article reminded me of it. Paying attention to the failures is
essential.

