ALBERT-LÁSZLÓ BARABÁSI
THE FORMULA
MEMORIZATION BOOKLET
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NOTE
Reading The Formula will
give you the full breadth
of Barabási’s research,
expertise, and personal
experience.
However, we have
constructed these resources
so that you can access,
learn, and apply the book’s
key points without a
traditional read-through.
Author Images
Cr: Adam Glanzman
Northeastern University
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BIG IDEA #1: SUCCESS IS ABOUT US
Albert-László Barabási has used the tools of network Performance is something that you do, i.e., how
science and big data to analyze and quantify success. you execute an item or instance of your profession,
In his groundbreaking book, The Formula, he expertise, or skill—for example, how well you sing,
lays out the quantitative laws that govern success, how beautiful your paintings are, how tasty the dish
breaking down why people succeed (or fail) into a you made for that potluck dinner was.
mathematical formula.
Whereas, success is how the community notices
When discussing success, the first question we have your performance, i.e., whether it acknowledges and
to answer is “how do we define success?” People often rewards you for it—for example, how many people
associate success with performance; but the more streamed your song, whether your painting was in the
Barabási looked into performance and success, the MOMA, and if you avoid giving your friends food
more he realized that performance and success are poisoning.
different beasts, from a quantitative perspective. “Your
success isn’t about you and your performance. It’s Performance is often tough to measure, because there
about us and how we perceive your performance.” may be just one data point (e.g. talent); while, success
is a collective quantity with many data points (e.g.,
prizes, recognition, records, fame)—making it much
easier to observe.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
List a few things that you do well (skills, expertise, strengths, etc).
Now list 3 of your biggest successes.
Is there any overlap between your successes and the high-performance areas listed above?
What made them successes in your eyes? Did you win awards? Did you receive recognition or notoriety?
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BIG IDEA #2: PERFORMANCE DOESN’T EQUAL SUCCESS
We tend to think that performance ultimately leads The Red Baron was a World War I fighter pilot
to success—and sometimes that’s true. After all, known for his fearless fights. He became the archetype
Tom Brady is a surefire future hall of fame football for fighter pilots, the subject of books and movies,
player, Michael Jordan is the GOAT, and you’re and you’ll even find pizza bearing his name in the
guaranteed to hear a Beyoncé song at every wedding frozen goods aisle of your local supermarket. The
and bar mitzvah you attend until the end of time. All reason we still remember him more than a century
great examples of incredibly high-level performance after his death is that we have precise statistics of
(unmatched talent) resulting in widespread his performance as a fighter pilot: he shot down 80
recognition. planes—more than anyone else in the war.
But that’s not always the case—performance doesn’t Meanwhile, Rene Fonck, the most prolific fighter on
automatically correlate with success. Basically, while the Allied side, remains relatively unknown to this
exceptional performance increases your chance of day—this despite the fact that, according to him, he
success, it’s not the sole determining factor. That’s why shot down 127 planes (while the official number is
your funny friend doesn’t have his own TV show, that only at 70, the actual number of takedowns is likely
amazing script you wrote at Starbucks hasn’t won an way closer to his estimate) and was more proficient
Oscar, and your child’s masterpiece is on the fridge than the Baron (who was shot down 3 times, the last
and not in the Louvre. one fatal, while Fonck was never even scratched by a
bullet). The fact that Rene is largely forgotten, while
To illustrate this point, Barabási tells the story of the Baron is in on a pizza in your freezer, highlights
Manfred von Richtofen, aka the Red Baron. the fact that performance is not the only variable that
contributes to success.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Describe a time where you performed well but it didn’t lead to success.
Now describe a time where you didn’t perform your best, but you were still successful.
Why do you think you were successful in one scenario, but not in the other? In the first scenario, is there anything
you could have done to improve your chance of success?
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BIG IDEA #3: PERFORMANCE IS BOUNDED
Common sense and traditional education teaches us To expound, in fields or areas where performance
that high performance leads to success; that’s why can be objectively measured, we find performance
we practice, we train, we get coaches... we’re trying is typically bounded—meaning variations between
to get better. You get a piano teacher so you can individuals are relatively small and differences among
play classical compositions, you practice free throws high performers are limited by an upper boundary.
so you can improve your percentage, and you stuff Bounded performance leads to a crowd at the top,
yourself at the buffet in case you ever want to enter where there are many individuals so close to each
Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest... all in the name other that they’re practically indistinguishable (e.g.
of enhanced performance. But the question remains: mere seconds or inches separate them).
does enhanced performance lead to success?
For example, Michael Phelps, the swimmer who many
In some cases, enhanced performance does lead to consider the greatest Olympian of all time, tied two
success, e.g. track and field. For world-class sprinters, other swimmers for the silver medal in the 100M
the faster they run, the more success they achieve; butterfly at the last Olympics. It was impossible to
which explains why Usain Bolt owns 8 Olympic gold tell who arrived first, because the Olympic stadium
medals. However, despite being the fastest person (with all its fancy tech) could only guarantee accuracy
on Earth, Bolt typically only wins his races by mere to within one centimeter and the time difference
tenths of a second. In fact, Barabási found that, in between the swimmers was less than that—so, in the
general, Bolt doesn’t run that much faster than the end, the swimmers ended up sharing the medal.
average person on their couch (...yes, you!), relative to
other superlative cases. And similar findings emerge
in every field where we can measure an objective of
performance.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Google the top 100-meter dash times in history. What is the time difference between the #1 sprinter (Usain Bolt)
and the #2 sprinter? How about #1 and #25?
Get off the couch and time yourself running the 100M dash (yes, seriously). How fast did you run it? How much
slower were you than Usain Bolt? Does the result surprise you?
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BIG IDEA #4: JUDGMENTS ARE BIASED
Building on the last point, most of you probably While this format was chosen so no one musician
aren’t Olympic-level swimmers (no offense), i.e., you would have an advantage, when Barabási looked at the
likely work in a field where it’s harder to measure data, he found that there’s never been a winner from
performance. And when performance can’t be Day 1 and there’s only been one winner from Day 2
objectively measured, there are many factors that (despite the competition being around since the ‘40s).
make distinguishing excellence very difficult. Barabási Further, the vast majority of winners came from Day
has collected lots of evidence indicating that experts 5. In other words, order matters.
have a hard time judging who is #1 from #10, and
that they tend to rely on certain biases instead. In competitions with subjectively ranked
chronological performances, the position of your
In competitions with subjectively-ranked performance influences your chances of winning.
chronological performances, the position of your Why? Once again, performance is bounded
performance influences your chances of winning. A —at the top there are many musicians that are
good example of this is the prestigious Queen indistinguishable in an objective way from each
Elisabeth Competition, which is carefully designed other. When top-tier performances become virtually
to crown the best young instrumentalists. If you win, indistinguishable, judges become biased, favoring
you’re all but guaranteed a successful career in classical later performances. This is known as immediacy
music. Once whittled down to 12 finalists, contestants bias. In addition to remembering later performances
are randomly chosen to perform competition-specific better, judges are prone to adjusting their criteria for
pieces on any one of 6 consecutive days. excellence as they see more performances.
PRO TIP: Barabási says if you have an interview coming up, do everything possible to be among the last of the
candidates to interview!
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Describe a time when you had to choose among several qualified choices (a pitch, an interview, a new home). What
factors played into your decision?
Now, if you can remember, how many options did you choose from? Where did the option you picked fall: was it
the first option? The last? What effect do you think the order of the options were presented had on your decision?
Choose 4 different brands of the same beverage (e.g., wine, beer, flavored seltzer) and do a blind taste test, ranking
them from 1 to 4. Which was your favorite? What order did you taste it? Which was your least favorite? What order
did you taste it? Did order have any effect on your rankings?
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BIG IDEA #5: NETWORKS DRIVE SUCCESS
What happens when we can’t measure performance? Back in the 1970s, a pair of graffiti artists signed all
There are certain areas of skill or expertise where over NYC under the tag SAMO, before eventually
performance is nearly impossible to measure—for breaking up. Al Diaz, one of the group’s members,
example, the art world. You can’t simply look at a is still around doing art, albeit in relative obscurity.
piece of art and determine its value. Is a bottle of Meanwhile, the other member, Jean-Michel Basquiat,
water art? What if it’s displayed as art in the Museum painted a piece (just 2 years after the breakup) that
of Modern Art? Would you pay a lot for a work you recently sold for 110 million—the most money ever
found at WalMart? What if you heard a rumor that it spent on an American work of art.
was a Banksy piece?
At the time of SAMO’s breakup, these two artists
Performance drives success. But in certain realms (like were virtually indistinguishable; so how did they end
art) where performance is not measurable, networks up with such different careers? Well, they approached
drive success—e.g, who touched the art, where it’s things differently. While Diaz approached everything
been exhibited, what does the “art world” think. In he did through a performance perspective, Basquiat
other words, you (as a casual observer) may think focused on networking. Basquiat befriended Andy
it’s a piece of junk; but if the art community reacts Warhol and prominent gallery owners, which
favorably, it will have a higher value. These invisible helped get his pieces exhibited in respected places
networks determine the value of art. and, in turn, become a big star in the art world.
Understanding the “nodes” of a person’s network,
particularly in subjective fields, allows you to make
reasonable predictions on their future success.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Name the last 3 movies you saw.
How did you choose those movies? Did you look to anyone/anything to help you choose (e.g, magazines, reviews,
friends)? What made you trust those sources?
Think about your industry. Which sources’ opinions hold the most weight? Who in your personal network could
you enlist to give your business more credibility?
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BIG IDEA #6: SUCCESS IS UNBOUNDED
Clearly, performance is bounded, but what about When Barabási’s first book was published, he inquired
success? Barabási found that success is a completely about the sales of other books out that week. At the
different animal. Based on his extensive research, he time there were two very hot books on top of the
maintains that, while performance is bounded, success New York Times Best Seller list: Nicholas Sparks’ The
is unbounded—meaning, in terms of success, the Last Song and Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol. That week,
“number one” performer can be orders of magnitude Sparks had sold a very respectable 100K books in the
more successful than their “runners up.” US, which is a lot—normally you get the top spot by
selling anywhere between 10K-30K. However, despite
Basically, even when there are not huge differences in selling more than 3X the top end of that range, Sparks
terms of performance, there can be huge differences found himself sitting at #2 behind Brown, who sold
in terms of how the community rewards the top 1.2 million copies.
performer. There are examples of this all around
you—it explains why some CEOs make hundreds You could say it’s random who ends up at #1—after
of millions of dollars, the Avengers movies crush all, performance is bounded and it’s questionable
the competition at the box office, and your parents’ which is the better book... perhaps if Sparks had just
favorite child always had way fewer chores than you. worked harder, he could have dethroned Brown. But,
while in principle that’s true, the numbers tell a much
different story. That’s because success is unbounded,
and in this case, Brown was rewarded mightily by his
fans. Don’t feel too bad for Sparks though... he still
made A LOT of money from The Notebook.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Google the box office results for the past weekend. How much money did the #1 movie make? How much more did
it make than #2? How about #10?
In your opinion, what is the best album of all-time? Now look up its sales. Despite a performance on par with any
piece of music ever made (at least according to you), how many less albums did your favorite sell than the best-
selling album of all-time?
Think about your job or business—what’s the most success you’ve had so far? Now dream big: what does your ideal
success look like?
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BIG IDEA #7: SUCCESS LEADS TO SUCCESS
The previous point raises a great question: how performance? According to Barabási (and anyone
can unbounded success emerge from bounded that’s seen the Kardashians) the answer is YES. He
performance? In other words, how do microscopic cites a series of experiments performed by sociologist
differences in performance lead to huge differences Arnold Van Leesh to back up this assertion.
in reward? To determine where unbounded success
comes from, Barabási studied hugely popular websites, Van Leesh really went after the origins of preferential
like Google and Yahoo. These sites are linked to 100 attachment in his experiments. In one of Barabási’s
of millions of times, whereas less popular sites are only favorites, Van Leesh chose a bunch of recently released
linked to a handful of times. How were they able to Kickstarter projects—none of whom had received a
have that much success in terms of visibility? donation yet. He randomly grouped the projects into
2 groups—giving one group a small donation (their
What Barabási learned is that success leads to first), and the other group nothing. While the success
success. He’s termed this phenomenon “preferential of the project should have depended on what the
attachment.” Preferential attachment is a quasi- project was offering, it didn’t. The “donation” group
mathematical formula that states that the more you was 2X more likely to fulfill their donation goal than
have, the more you will get, i.e. your current success the “ignored” projects; further, the “donation” group
is proportionate to how much you had before—e.g., raised 3X more overall.
the more friends you have, the more likely you’ll be
introduced to new people and make them your pals; This experiment was a perfect illustration of the
the more likes you have on your Instagram post, assertion that more attracts more—i.e., success
the more likely others will be to double tap; and the leads to success. The two groups were virtually
more pizza you eat, the more likely you are to get indistinguishable and just by rewarding one group it
indigestion—basically, the rich get richer. led them to even more rewards. You can find examples
of this momentum everywhere: from the growth of
What Barabási has learned in his extensive research is web pages, to frequently cited scientific studies, to
that every time overwhelming (or unbounded) success popularity in school, and beyond—in fact, the data
is present, preferential attachment is also present. This suggests that this type of “success leads to success”
raises the question: can success lead to success without formula underlies all runaway triumphs.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Pretend you’re looking for a place to eat and you pass two places (both have good reviews and similar menus)—one
has a wait and one is basically empty. Which do you think you’d chose? Why?
Describe a time that your previous success led to more success for you? How about for your business? How can you
leverage your current success to gain future success?
Post two brand new, similar pictures on your Instagram feed. “Like” one and ignore the other. Then, check back in
a couple of hours. Which one got more likes? Is it the one you liked? Do you think your quick like had an effect on
the posts overall number of likes?
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BIG IDEA #8: QUALITY PLAYS A ROLE
Ok, so success leads to success, but fitness (aka If we go back to the experiment, the researchers had
quality) has to matter too... right? Well, not always. the original list of what the students liked when they
To illustrate, Barabási uses a MusicLab experiment weren’t influenced by others. They then took that list
where the researchers picked 49 songs from unknown and played it for a new crop of individual students
bands and asked thousands of students to rank —this time inverting the order, with the lowest
the songs (played randomly) in an app—allowing ranked songs played first. What they found is that the
them to download their fave. Then, new groups of “best” songs (over time), would rise back to the top.
students would enter separate “virtual rooms,” where In other words, quality has an effect on your opinions,
they’d hear the music in most downloaded to least but we also tend to rely on what others think.
downloaded order. All 8 rooms were tasked with
coming up with a collective ranking among them. Think about how you discover music—you probably
rely on the opinions of others as a “cheat sheet” to
Well, no room had the same #1—what was #1 in one what’s best—e.g., your best friend, Rolling Stone, the
room was #25 in another. How is that possible? You weird guy at the record store. But the #1 song on the
can blame the crowd effect, i.e, the tendency of people charts is not always the “best” (remember Gangnam
to align their opinions when there is no objectively Style?)—it might have just had an early run of success.
dominant answer. In this case, the rankings were So where does quality/fitness come into the equation?
totally random depending on the groups’ initial
choices. Basically, if someone in a room had ranked a What Barabási found is that fitness, or the overall
song high right away, the other students would believe quality of something within its arena, works alongside
that song was the best and double down on that preferential attachment in determining future success
choice. (whether it be music success, social media influence,
restaurant reviews, etc). Barabási put this into a
But before you get all existential, quality still matters. formula: fitness x previous success = future success.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Think of a show or song you consider a guilty pleasure. Have you told anyone that you watch/listen to it? Would
you play it in front of others? Why or why not?
Describe a time at your job where your team made a choice you didn’t agree with. Did you speak up? Why or why
not? If you did speak up, why do you think your concerns were overheard?
Next time your work requires a group decision, be among the first people to voice your opinion. If you’re not ready
for that, practice by being the first person in your group text to suggest a restaurant. Either way, good luck!
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BIG IDEA #9: TEAM PERFORMANCE IS NOT TEAM SUCCESS
Misanthropes cover your ears: in order to achieve But as we’ve seen with individual cases, team
anything significant, you need to work with others. performance does not always equal team success.
So how do you put together a team geared toward The question becomes: how does your team create
success? To answer that question, once again, we must something that the community recognizes and
separate performance from success. rewards? When researchers looked at this question,
they got a very different answer than they did for
There’s been a lot of research on how to put together performance. They found that successful teams need
a well-performing team, i.e., a team that can solve a strong leader—someone who takes charge and does
difficult tasks in an efficient manner. What researchers the heavy lifting, while everyone else contributes in
found is that the keys to a high-performing team minor roles.
are 1) empathy (the ability to actually pay attention
to each other); 2) uniformity (everyone contributes In a nutshell, if you want to figure out a solvable but
equally to the work); and 3) women (hopefully you difficult problem, you need a high-performance team,
know what women are). Basically, you won’t get i.e. a team that works well together and has an equal
a high-performing team with 5 MBA dudes from chance to contribute. However, if you want to do
Harvard... throw a medical professional in there... something truly revolutionary (compose a musical,
maybe an academic… how about someone with direct a blockbuster, make vegetables taste good), you
experience? need to put together a successful team, i.e. a team
with a strong leader and role players whose job it is to
support the leader in their vision.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Describe the last time you solved a difficult problem as part of a team. What was the makeup of the team? How did
everyone work together?
Now describe the last time you were part of a team that you consider a failure. What was the makeup of the team?
Why do you think you failed?
What is something revolutionary that you would like to accomplish? If you were putting together a team to achieve
this goal, who would you draft as a leader? Why? Who would you put in supporting roles? What does each person
have to offer?
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BIG IDEA #10: SUCCESS HAS NO AGE
Barabási wrote The Formula because he felt there Barabási found that, just like geniuses, “non-geniuses”
was a real need to understand success in quantitative also made their major discoveries within the first 15
terms. The difficulty he has with the litany of success- years of their careers. BUT, when he looked at the
story books out there, is that there is no experimental data closer, he found something interesting... while
control. He maintains that if you really want to study the scientists were more successful in the beginning
success with data, you need to study it in the same of their career, they were also more productive during
way we study disease, drugs, etc., i.e. by studying those years. When he further deconstructed the data,
successful people along with the least successful he realized that success has no age. Basically, projects
people. After all, not all artists win Nobel prizes, not are like lottery tickets—every one averages out to
all ball players win MVP, and this workbook probably having the same chance at being successful, people
won’t win a Pulitzer. just buy more tickets early in life... so it feels like you
have to be young to be successful.
Using this approach, Barabási was able to really
quantify what distinguishes success from lack of In reality, there is no correlation between age and
success and map out the networks (and performances) success. Rather, there is a connection between age and
that drive success. One of the more interesting productivity. Those who don’t slow down in age are
questions he sought to tackle is: when does success just as likely to succeed later in life as young people.
emerge in your life? The research suggests most You see examples of this in Silicon Valley, where
“geniuses” make their major discoveries (e.g., a entrepreneurs in their 50s are 2X more likely to have a
symphony, a scientific breakthrough, the movie successful exit (e.g. an IPO or a sale) than a company
Superbad) in their 20s or 30s... so the answer appeared formed by a 30-year old. Another great example is
clear: youth=creativity. But what happened when John Flynn, a chemist, who received a Nobel prize at
Barabási looked at all scientists since the 1900s...not 85. The lesson: success has no age; our willingness to
just the geniuses? try has an age.
APPLICATION TO LIFE
Describe a time that you achieved something, despite being considered too old (or too young).
Think of an activity you used to engage in a lot. How often did you participate in that activity 5 years ago? 10 years
ago? How often do you participate now? If you participate less now, why? If it’s the same or equal, how have you
remained engaged?
What equals success in your field? What is the best way to achieve it? Block off time to work on it. If you feel
yourself becoming unmotivated, go on Facebook and find a cheesy quote to pump you up (or take a nap), then get
back on your grind... Get going, you’re done here!
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MY OWN NOTES
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MY OWN NOTES
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MY OWN NOTES
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