3.4 Why You Only Hear About Winners (and Why That’s a Problem) - Survivorship Bias
Everyone talks about the YouTubers who blew up overnight… but what about the millions who didn’t? Here’s how survivorship bias messes with your head.
Ever wonder why it feels like everyone successful has an amazing story like "I started a company in my garage and now I'm a billionaire" or "I did 100 pushups a day and now I'm an athlete"? You hear about the winners everywhere – on YouTube, in school newsletters, on social media. But what about the hundreds or thousands of people who tried the same things and didn't succeed? We rarely hear about them. That's survivorship bias in action: we tend to focus on the "survivors" (the successes) and ignore those who didn't make it.
What is Survivorship Bias?
Survivorship bias is a kind of selection bias. It means our view of a situation is skewed because we only see the ones that survived or succeeded, not the full picture. It's like only reading reviews from people who loved a game and not hearing from those who hated it and quit playing (because they didn't stick around to review it). The failures or dropouts are invisible, so we might draw wrong lessons from the winners we see.
In simple terms: Don't be fooled by just the success stories; remember there are often many other stories that didn't get told.
Real-Life Survivorship Bias Examples
"Overnight Success" Stories: You might hear about a 19-year-old who created an app and sold it for millions. Wow! It's easy to think, "If I build an app, I'll get rich too!" Survivorship bias alert: For that one teenage app millionaire, there are thousands of others who coded away and maybe made nothing or even lost money. We don't see a YouTube headline for each of them. It's not that you shouldn't try—just don't bank on success being guaranteed because you copied a winner's path. Remember, the winners are loud, the losers are quiet.
College Admission Tales: At school, maybe one student got into a super prestigious college and everyone talks about how they were captain of this, won that, volunteered here. It might seem like those exact things are the "formula." But what about other students who had similar resumes and didn't get in? They exist, but we don't always hear about them in the gossip mill. If you only study the one success story, you might overestimate how much those activities guarantee anything. Admissions can be a bit of luck and fit too; we just mainly see the survivors.
Sports Tryouts Example: The coach says, "Our training program produces champions!" pointing to the current star players. Those star players (survivors) indeed succeeded under that training. But consider the kids who started that training program and quit or got injured or didn't become stars—they're not on the team to prove anything. Ignoring them might make the program seem infallible, even if it actually didn't work for many.
Content Creators: Think of all the famous TikTokers or YouTubers who dropped out of school to focus on content because it paid off for them. They are visible and making bank. But for every one of those, there might be 100 who dropped out, tried to make it big, and eventually had to pick up a different path with far less success. We just don't hear their stories in our feeds.
Challenge: See the Full Picture
Time to widen your perspective. Your challenge:
Think of a success story that inspires you (a person or outcome you admire).
Do a quick reality check or thought exercise: ask "Who might have tried the same thing and not succeeded?" If you can, actually look up stats or stories. (For example, if someone started a business, what's the percentage of startups that fail? Spoiler: it's high.)
Write down a lesson that includes both the potential for success and the risk of failure. For instance, "I can try to be a pro gamer, but I know many try and don't make it; I'll give it my best but have a backup plan."