Michael Mauboussin: "The Success Equation:Untangling Skill and Luck" | Talks at Google

Description: What role, exactly, do skill and luck play in our successes and failures? Some games, like roulette and the lottery, are pure luck. Others, like chess, exist at the other end of the spectrum, relying almost wholly on players' skill. In his provocative book, Michael Mauboussin untangles the intricate strands of skill and luck, defines them, and provides useful frameworks for analyzing their relative contributions. He offers concrete suggestions for how to put these insights to work to your advantage in business and other dimensions of life. About the author: Michael J. Mauboussin is a Managing Director and Head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse. Prior to rejoining CS in 2013, he was Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management. He is also the author of three books, including More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places, named in the The 100 Best Business Books of All Time by 800-CEO-Read. Michael has been an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School since 1993, and received the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2009. He is also chairman of the board of trustees of the Santa Fe Institute, a leading center for mulch-disciplinary research in complex systems theory.

Comments

1. Love the 'interpreter' analogy, explaining things after-the-fact is not understanding them
2. We can always work harder. Isn't the idea that luck plays a big role in our success inherently demotivating?
3. Lang
4. outstanding michael - thanks so much - I daresay, the new age charlie munger of the psychology of luck and skill
   god bless
5. Great talk! 
6. Over the top Testo @sshole more than a teacher/academic
   weak education credentials at BA/Credit Suisse Banker job
   so this tard knows the in's and out's of Corp world a little bit
   + a jumble of useless stats which confuse more than help
   LULz@the bangladoodoo chimp at the start and his funky
   accent
7. He distills the complex to manageable bites that all can understand.  Just bought the book. 
8. Fantastic
9. Referring to the first question I'd say that most of the narrower excess returns among money managers can be explained by index hugging. A lot of instituational investors hold either the index or a portfolio close to the index, for example 100 stocks out of the S&P500 with no stock making up more than 3% of assets. In such a world you would expect small SD of excess returns. That is a world where money managers manage their career risk first and dont want to be the best at delivering risk adjusted performance. Someone who truly cares about performance goes for a proven quant strategy like Joel Greenblatt, concentrated "deep value" like Seth Klarman, concentrated "compounding machines" like Warren Buffet, concentrated special situations (old school Joel Greenblatt), concentrated small cap stocks... or a mix of those.
10. which value investor he mentions during the Q&A? ... Seth Chloreman?
11. Kind of a depressing speech, but at the same time, true. 
12. Michael has rare SKILLs.  Excellent talk as always
13. This is great, thanks Michael, will look into the book!  Tremendously interesting and informative talk on skill vs luck.
14. Excellent talk, thanks!
15. Excellent video TaG. 1550, 1700, 2140 luck,  2250 path dependent, 3210 conveczaty, 3600, 3707, 3736 the interpreter, 3840 role of luck, 3900,  3950, 4113, 4150, 4340, 4412, 4455 under dog compli,, 4644, 4703, 4922, 5100, 5140, 5233, 5248, 5253 very rarer, 5302 conductive to quality descion making, 5308, 5347, 5348 market efficiency, wisdom of crouds, 5405, 5420, 5430, 5500 divercity breakdowns, 5511, 5528, 5545 stander diviation, 5630, 10054 chacing stars, 10143 its more intellectual, 10222, 12244 pay off, 10328 book,