The Success Equation

Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing

By: Michael J. Mauboussin

Narrated by: Wes Talbot

Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

"Much of what we experience in life results from a combination of skill and luck." (From the Introduction)

The trick, of course, is figuring out just how many of our successes (and failures) can be attributed to each - and how we can learn to tell the difference ahead of time. In most domains of life, skill and luck seem hopelessly entangled. Different levels of skill and varying degrees of good and bad luck are the realities that shape our lives - yet few of us are adept at accurately distinguishing between the two. Imagine what we could accomplish if we were able to tease out these two threads, examine them, and use the resulting knowledge to make better decisions.

In this provocative audiobook, Michael Mauboussin helps to untangle these intricate strands to offer the structure needed to analyze the relative importance of skill and luck. He offers concrete suggestions for making these insights work to your advantage. Once we understand the extent to which skill and luck contribute to our achievements, we can learn to deal with them in making decisions.

The Success Equation helps us move toward this goal by:

• Establishing a foundation so we better understand skill and luck, and can pinpoint where each is most relevant
• Helping us develop the analytical tools necessary to understand skill and luck
• Offering concrete suggestions about how to take these findings and put them to work

Showcasing Mauboussin's trademark wit, insight, and analytical genius, The Success Equation is a must for anyone seeking to make better decisions - in business and in life.

©2012 Michael J. Mauboussin (P)2013 Gildan Media LLC

Great clarity for sorting efforts and results

This is one of my favorite audiobooks of the many I have heard. It is a great entry point for thinking statistically. I never tire of explanations of basic ideas in clear terms. This is carefully composed to build one understanding on another. I have heard many of these ideas elsewhere, Daniel Kahneman for example is discussed throughout this genre, but this is one of the best-composed. One could waste much effort and resources in life, whether in business, investing, gambling, or other decisions, from the common errors that this book clears up. This is a great prelude to a more technically-written book like "How To Measure Anything."

Excellent in written format, "ok" in Audio.

This book is Mentality "New" and Stimulating. A book best with note taking options avaliable.

Great topic

This was an interesting topic that covered the difference between luck and skill. It also explained how disrupters/disadvantaged opponents need to change the game to get an edge by over complicating the game. There were several examples and it probably could have been a little shorter, but still very good!

Eleven year old book but likely will never be dated.

This is a useful framework for avoiding the trap of post-hoc rationalization of random phenomena.

Not great for business

It's interesting enough and there are some good points to reflect on, but if you're not in sports or some form of public markets investing, it's not directly relevant.

My very first audible book and I will never forget it

I really like this book it was fantastic the narration was fabulous and it helped bring the content to life if I had to actually read this book it probably would’ve taken me two months to get through because it was very technical but the narration helped really make me understand the contact quicker and faster and I was able to rewind to get better understanding of the concepts that I could not grasp. The author did a fantastic job with this book and I would highly recommend it to Lake Lee people because in the email with his illustration and an adult he makes it very easy to understand.

Not a Great Audiobook

The book is bit repetitive, but helpful in understand key concepts and the importance of thinking in probabilities and understand the role of luck in many outcomes. Unfortunately, this was not a great audiobook as it was sometimes hard to understand the statistical references without being able to view the charts or graphs being referenced.

Still need to read the book as a beginner

I think the performance is a little bit dull, perhaps because the content contains lots of mathematics. For equations it's better to read than listen.

Great book, maybe repetitive/redundant. Horrible narration.

I couldn't fully tell if the narrator was a human being or a text-to-speech program. Odd pauses, odd inflection, and pretty monotone.

Book was very interesting, I watched a Google talk with the author, and I found the talk better. Nonetheless, the central idea is a great one, I have more typo think about as a result, this book has delivered a valuable thinking tool I the skill vs. luck continuum.

Immensely Relevant…..

Professionally, this book is a superb resource. I have recommended it to many of my likeminded friends in my industry.

I do believe that audio lacked some of the benefit the book would have had in terms of some visualisations to make digesting some points easier, but in the main it was easy to follow. I think some of the ‘equations’ suffered from the same restrictions, and perhaps it is up to me to purchase the book.

Either way, I think if you can take away key messages from this book, you can learn not to be mistaken in a lot of ways people are in the field of sport, but also in statistics and probability too. Thoroughly enjoyable, but I will try and purchase the book for the above reasons.

Insightful and Useful

I am an avid and pleased reader of Michael Maboussin's phenomenal work. World Class Content and insights and a must read.

great insight into a under researched arena

really enjoyed this book. would be better with graphs in hardcopy though if i was to go again.

Audio book wrong format

Audio book is not the best format at all for this book. Would recommend getting the paperback or kindle version