Survivorship Bias isĀ our tendency to focus on successful examples and ignore failures. The failures often didnāt survive to be seen, so we miss them. The outcomes that we do see were the ones that āsurvivedā.
When we only take into account the successful examples, this leads to a distorted view of reality.Ā In the book
The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb said:Ā
The cemetery of failed restaurants is very silent.
Heās suggesting that we might easily be affected by Survivorship Bias when looking at the restaurant industry.Ā
In particular, those entering the restaurant business might not see (or focus on) the huge proportion of entrants that failed, but instead see the few of the very best that survived - buoying their enthusiasmĀ and confidence of success. Entering the restaurant business might look like great way to make a living! Unfortunately a large proportion of entrants are doomed to fail.
In the Media
An even easier way to find examples of Survivorship Bias is to just look at any media outlet! Theyāre littered with coverage of leading athletesĀ or entrepreneurs and their so-called secrets to success.
One classic is the coverage of the story of Bill Gates dropping out of Harvard then becoming a billionaire⦠(or more recently Mark Zuckerberg).Ā This is contrasted by probably near zero mentions of theĀ college dropouts who arenāt billionaires.
Hereās an example in an article from CNBC. There isnāt any mention of all the college dropouts that didnātĀ achieveĀ what Gates did: