VALUE: After Hours (S07 E37): Performance Is Subordinate to Survival

During their recent episode, Taylor, Carlisle, and Luca Dell’Anna discussed Performance Is Subordinate to Survival. Here’s an excerpt from the episode:

And from him, I’ve learned the lesson that performance is subordinate to survival, that it’s not the fastest skier who wins the race, but the fastest one amongst those who make it to the finish line.

And here, I’m not just making the banal point that survival matters to performance. We all know that, but I’m saying that it matters more than performance over the long-term. And to drive this point, I always make a numerical example. So, imagine a ski championship consisting of 10 races. And my cousin who is a very good skier, he has a 20% chance of winning each race, but also 20% chance of breaking his leg. And the question is, how many races is he expected to win over a championship of 10 races? The naive answer would be two races. Because we think 10 races, 20% chance of winning each, that makes 2.

However, if you crunch the numbers, the real expected number of wins is only 0.64. And the reason why of this big difference, 2 versus 0.64, is survival, because if he breaks his leg in the first race, not only he loses that race, but he also loses all following ones. This is the importance of survival.

You can find out more about the VALUE: After Hours Podcast here – VALUE: After Hours Podcast. You can also listen to the podcast on your favorite podcast platforms here:

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