Lindy Effect

New ideas and technologies are evolving all the time, but very few last and witness successes over extended time periods. In 1964, Albert Goldman defined the “Lindy Law” as the life expectancy of a television comedian is proportional to the total amount of his exposure on that medium. On a surface this law does not seem profound, however later when the French mathematician Benoit Mandelbroit wrote his famous article “Lindy Effect”, it popularized the concept, which defined as a statistical regularity where for many kinds of entity: the longer they have been around so far, the longer they are likely to last. It implies that items such as an idea, brand, technology, or a book which survived the test of time, has much higher survival likelihood in the foreseeable future. Nassim Taleb’s “Antifragile” further builds this concept. He provided an example of a book which is in print for 40 years, has a higher likelihood to survive for 40 years more; and if it would survive 10 years further, it will increase its chances to last another 50 years. We can think of many examples from classics, art, businesses etc. which embody the Lindy Effect. If a business survives over a long time, is a testimony that it has experienced numerous ups and downs and created a muscle memory which helped it to adapt and become stronger against stressors and challenges. In case of a good idea (or a book), Lindy Effect manifests as developing and creating new understanding and meaning which helped it to stay relevant over time. Generally, half cooked and/ or ill thought ideas have short half-lives and are not worth pursuing. We should not let these distractions take away our focus from more important things. Lindy Effect provides us a tool to filter good ideas and paradigms from plethora of information and leads to better decision-making. What do you think about Lindy Effect? ??