Lindy for Managers

The Lindy Effect says that the longer an idea or technology has been around, the longer it is expected to stick around in the future.

I first learned about the Lindy Effect, also called Lindy’s Law, in Taleb’s book “Antifragile.”

Some examples of what is Lindy and what isn’t

Before discussing how managers can use it, let’s see a few examples of what is Lindy and what isn’t.

• The non-perishable (e.g., ideas, technologies, recipes) are Lindy. The longer a song has been on the radio, the longer we can expect it to remain on the radio.
• The perishable, such as food and people, aren’t Lindy: the older they are, the sooner they are expected to perish. After all, a 90-year-old is expected to die sooner than a 40-year-old despite a higher conditional life expectancy.
• Groups of people and animals, such as cults and species, do are Lindy. The longer a species has been around, the longer we expect it to still be around.
• Jobs are Lindy. The longer a job has existed, the longer we can expect it to still be around. (If you disagree bringing the counterexample of farmers, consider that farmers are still around.)
• Careers are partially Lindy. The longer someone has been in politics, the more we can expect them to be in politics until they retire.

The latter example gives us an insight into the two mechanics that explain the Lindy Effect.

The rationale for the Lindy Effect

There are two mechanics underlying life expectancy.

On the one hand, life expectancy is inversely proportional to hazard rate: the lower one’s likelihood of dying in any given year, the longer their life expectancy. We can turn this around to say that the longer something has been around, the lower its hazard rate must have been, and therefore the longer it is expected not to perish.

On the other hand, some entities (the living) have a bound to their life expectancy. People seldom live above 90 years old, and the closer they get to this bound, the more their hazard rate increases.

These two mechanics sum up into a general theory of life expectancy:

The longer something has been around, the longer it is expected to be around, and the closer it gets to its natural bound of life expectancy (if any), the earlier it is expected to perish.

How can managers use the Lindy Effect?

Here are a few principles we can derive from Lindy’s Law that can be useful to managers:

The longer a problem has been around, the longer it is expected to be around in the future. Address it now once and for all.

To estimate the life expectancy of one of your products (or one of your competitors’), consider how long it’s been around and how long the assumptions upon which it survives (habits, technologies) have been around.

The more areas someone has exhibited competency in, the higher the chances they will demonstrate competency in a new area.

What other examples of the Lindy Effect can you spot in your job?