Learn:  Lindy effect, favorite article of the year, perishable time grid

Read: 3 mins

Greetings from Austin,

Word of the week: Lindy

⏳ Lindy Effect 

The Lindy Effect is the idea that the older something is, the longer it is likely to be around in the future. 

This, of course, applies to non-perishable items (like information, ideas, etc.), not perishable ones (like humans). 

Nassim Taleb, author of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, explains:

“If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness. The robustness of an item is proportional to its life!”

So two core assumptions:

1. The longer it exists, the longer it will continue to exist
2. Older things are more robust than younger things

🧠 Lindy Article

The best article I’ve read this year was NOT created this year. It was created in 2019. 

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator, wrote a blog post over 5 years ago called How To Be Successful. 

It’s SO good. 

I first came across it a few years ago, but then recently reread it, and it was even better!

Yes, there are 4.6 billion new pieces of content created each day, and I chose to REREAD something from 2019. Not just reread, but also take notes. 

That’s the beauty of the Lindy Effect. I’d rather reread and ABSORB great content that resonates (and stands the test of time) than mindlessly try to keep up with all the new stuff. 

Altman’s blog post has 13 components of success and examples. I distilled these into this outline in Google Doc. I also added questions for each in green (those were my additions, not in the article) to make it easier to apply.

Whenever I come across interesting content, I think to myself, “This is interesting; how would it be useful?” 

Distilling, highlighting, bolding, and adding questions is the quickest way I know how to move from interesting to useful. 

Here is the doc for you to do the same.

⌛ Anti-Lindy (Perishable) 

Humans are perishable and, therefore, not subject to the Lindy Effect. 

We’re reminded of this every time we lose someone. 

Matthew Perry passed away last night. He was 54 years old. 

Perry always reminded me of my Uncle Steve. (Who coincidentally also passed away at age 54 in October a few years ago). 

Most of us get about 4000 weeks (77 years) at this game called Life. 

If you're Perry or my uncle Steve, you only got 2800 weeks. 

Here is what the whole game looks like on a grid (each box is 100 weeks, which is 1.9 years). I am currently 34, which could be viewed as time “spent” or gone from the potential allotment. 

But a better way is to look at this instead as a game. I’ve been lucky enough to accumulate 34 years of “life points” so far. (yay!)

Sure, I’d love to keep collecting way more, but I also don’t want to forget how precious each one is. 

As we learned with Matthew Perry and others, the game can always end sooner than we expect. 

Happy living friends. 

In good health, 

Mitchell