Silent evidence
Молчаливые свидетельства · Молчащие доказательства
The data you don't see - failures, drop-outs, missing cases - usually changes the conclusion. The story you can hear is biased by survivorship.
We listen to 1000 successful founders and conclude «grit + vision wins». The 100,000 founders who had grit and vision and failed don't get interviewed. Same for war heroes, lottery winners, drug success stories, market timers. The silent graveyard is huge.
Almost every «what successful X have in common» study is silent-evidence trash. Survivorship explains the «pattern» you see.
«All these CEOs wake up at 5am» - what about all the CEOs who wake up at 5am and run boring mid-sized companies? Or the 5am-wakers who never became CEOs?
- 1Whenever someone tells you «winners have X in common», ask: «do losers also have X?»
- 2Always ask «who's missing from this dataset?»
This part of the knowledge base is inspired by the book. Go to the Ukrainian edition to explore the concept in depth.
- · Меточка по Талебу - silent evidence