“Survivorship bias means this: people systematically overestimate their chances of success.”

Why it was said

Rolf Dobelli writes this in the first chapter of The Art of Thinking Clearly (2013), which deals with survivorship bias. The chapter starts from the observation that successful people and projects are far more visible than the much larger number that failed.

What it actually means

Success is reported and failure mostly is not. The authors on the bestseller list, the start-ups that raised money and the musicians who sold out arenas are in plain view, while the many who tried the same things and disappeared leave no trace. Judging the odds from what is visible therefore makes them look much better than they are. Dobelli's definition names the result: a systematic, not occasional, overestimate of one's own chances. The remedy he proposes is to look deliberately for the failures, which he describes as visiting the graves of once-promising projects. The bias is well established in statistics and finance. It does not mean that nobody should try risky things, only that the decision should rest on the full base rate.

How to use it

1. 1Before you copy a success story, look for three people or companies who followed the same approach and did not succeed, and note what differed.
2. 2When you estimate your chances of a risky project, write down the base rate for projects like it before you think about your own advantages.