The 1,000 Run Swing

I wanted to share a quote with you that has captured my imagination for weeks. It’s from Jeff Bezos. Love him or hate him, he describes the opportunity that capitalism provides perfectly.

“Outsized returns often come from betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right. Given a 10 percent change of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you're still going to be wrong nine times out of ten. We all know that if you swing for the fences, you're going to strike out a lot, but you're also going to hit some home runs. The difference between baseball and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it's important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments."

I’ve been afraid to fail my whole life. Sure, I’ll do unconventional things. I’ll step just far enough outside of the box to get noticed, but not too far out that I can’t get back in when things get uncertain. 

I’ve enjoyed some benefits of capitalism. I’ve leveraged my skills in a specific marketplace to earn more than the going rate. I’ve used that to enjoy more flexibility and time with my family. But I haven’t leveraged my skills to the degree they can go, mainly because I’ve been afraid to fail. I’ve been afraid of how I would feel after the third, or fourth, or ninth time failing before the 1,000 run swing. I’ve been afraid of how other people will perceive me. 

I don’t have a nice conclusion to this piece. It’s just a post mid-ponder.

Won’t you join me in this pondering? 

P.S. For all my short kings out there, did you know that Jeff Bezos is 5’7”? So is Mark Zuckerberg.