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Ergodicity: How irreversible outcomes affect long-term performance in work, investing, relationships, sport, and beyond
"This is one of the most important books I’ve read, period. It’s short, articulate, and expansive on a singular subject matter — ergodicity, which is really the key ingredient to success in life, marriage, business, family, happiness, health, etc." – Blake Janover, Janover Inc. CEO
"To not spend time and money on books that you should not waste resources on, please first read this book. This is a great book for those who quickly want to familiarize themselves with the concept of ergodicity. The author goes to great lengths to explain the concept in easily understandable terms. He also offers several practical implications for navigating non-ergodic environments. Highly recommended!" – Auke Hunneman
The book has been featured on the EconTalk podcast
What is ergodicity, and why does it matter?
"The Most Important Property to Understand in Probability, in Life, in Anything." – Nassim Nicholas Taleb on ergodicity.
"I think the most underrated idea is ergodicity." – David Perell, author.
Is ergodicity the most important concept in decision-making and behavioral sciences? (Yes.)
Is it relevant for you in your daily life? (Yes.)
Is it possible to explain it so simply that a grandma or a high-schooler can understand it? (Yes.)
Even if they know nothing about maths? (Yes.)
That's because ergodicity is an essential idea with so many practical applications. Sadly, most books describe it in a very technical way, making it inaccessible to most people.
In this short book, 6-times author Luca Dellanna describes ergodicity as simply as possible. You will read stories about how not knowing about it destroyed his cousin’s career as a skier, or how misunderstanding it caused additional deaths during the pandemic. You will learn how to spot situations where ergodicity matters and the three strategies to react appropriately.
The book is approximately 169 pages long, of which 143 are pure content and the rest are tables of content, etc.
Who is this book for?
This book is for readers interested in growing themselves, their career, or their businesses and who want to learn about ergodicity and its practical applications without having to understand its mathematical foundation. No mathematical knowledge is required, only a high-school-level understanding of English.
Readers who want to master the theory and mathematical foundation of ergodicity are better off reading a more formal manuscript. This book is not a substitute for it but a complement.
About the author
Luca Dellanna is the author of 9 books. He is a researcher in complexity science and emergent behaviors, and an operational excellence consultant. He spoke at Nudgestock, appeared on EconTalk, and regularly teaches risk management at Genoa University.
"To not spend time and money on books that you should not waste resources on, please first read this book. This is a great book for those who quickly want to familiarize themselves with the concept of ergodicity. The author goes to great lengths to explain the concept in easily understandable terms. He also offers several practical implications for navigating non-ergodic environments. Highly recommended!" – Auke Hunneman
The book has been featured on the EconTalk podcast
What is ergodicity, and why does it matter?
"The Most Important Property to Understand in Probability, in Life, in Anything." – Nassim Nicholas Taleb on ergodicity.
"I think the most underrated idea is ergodicity." – David Perell, author.
Is ergodicity the most important concept in decision-making and behavioral sciences? (Yes.)
Is it relevant for you in your daily life? (Yes.)
Is it possible to explain it so simply that a grandma or a high-schooler can understand it? (Yes.)
Even if they know nothing about maths? (Yes.)
That's because ergodicity is an essential idea with so many practical applications. Sadly, most books describe it in a very technical way, making it inaccessible to most people.
In this short book, 6-times author Luca Dellanna describes ergodicity as simply as possible. You will read stories about how not knowing about it destroyed his cousin’s career as a skier, or how misunderstanding it caused additional deaths during the pandemic. You will learn how to spot situations where ergodicity matters and the three strategies to react appropriately.
The book is approximately 169 pages long, of which 143 are pure content and the rest are tables of content, etc.
Who is this book for?
This book is for readers interested in growing themselves, their career, or their businesses and who want to learn about ergodicity and its practical applications without having to understand its mathematical foundation. No mathematical knowledge is required, only a high-school-level understanding of English.
Readers who want to master the theory and mathematical foundation of ergodicity are better off reading a more formal manuscript. This book is not a substitute for it but a complement.
About the author
Luca Dellanna is the author of 9 books. He is a researcher in complexity science and emergent behaviors, and an operational excellence consultant. He spoke at Nudgestock, appeared on EconTalk, and regularly teaches risk management at Genoa University.
169 pages, ebook
Published November 1, 2020
About the author
Luca Dellanna
19 books100 followersA mechanical engineer by training, Luca decided to quit his corporate job to become an independent researcher and author and shed light on the topics of nonlinearities on human collective behavior. Luca believes that those topics are essential for preventing human suffering, especially as the scale of our civilization keeps increasing.
His style is concise and direct, focused on cause-effect relationships. He rejects top-down theories and explains most real world phenomena with bottom-up hypotheses.
Luca published his first book, “The Control Heuristic: Explaining Irrational Behavior and Resistance to Change”, in 2017. In the following year, he published another book titled “The World Through a Magnifying Glass: A New Theory to Explain Autism” and followed it up with “The Power of Adaptation”.
Luca writes regularly on Twitter (@DellAnnaLuca).
His personal website is www.luca-dellanna.com
You can support him by suggesting this book to your friends or colleagues.
His style is concise and direct, focused on cause-effect relationships. He rejects top-down theories and explains most real world phenomena with bottom-up hypotheses.
Luca published his first book, “The Control Heuristic: Explaining Irrational Behavior and Resistance to Change”, in 2017. In the following year, he published another book titled “The World Through a Magnifying Glass: A New Theory to Explain Autism” and followed it up with “The Power of Adaptation”.
Luca writes regularly on Twitter (@DellAnnaLuca).
His personal website is www.luca-dellanna.com
You can support him by suggesting this book to your friends or colleagues.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 2, 2021
This is one of the most important books I’ve read, period. It’s short, articulate and expansive on a singular subject matter — ergodicity which is really the key ingredient to success in life, marriage, business, family, happiness, health, etc.. It’s mathematical in origin but ubiquitous in application. High performance only matters if you survive.
Shout out to Matt for the referral!
Shout out to Matt for the referral!
December 29, 2020
Thoroughly enjoyed the book and its straight to the point explanations and practical examples. In fact I wish we all saved ourselves some time and read books in this format. I read the book in Roam and it was a great format to jump there and back with bi-directional links. One thing I wish was a bit better is a better structure as I found definitions in some places being short and in other slightly too lengthy. Overall, it's a brilliant book and I learned tonnes with just reminiscing my choices and life scenarios where I would have benefited from this concept. Kudos!
December 20, 2020
I was drawn to read this book as it was the first rBook I heard of (a book available natively in RoamResearch).
I heard of ergodicity before from Nassim Taleb and had a surface level understanding of it. When I saw how many smart people recommended it as one of the
most important concepts to understand related to decision making I was interested to learn more.
I also heard great praises of Luca’s ability to communicate complex ideas in a digestible way.
After finishing the book, I think this may be one of the most important books for everyone to read. Ergodicity should be taught in school and it should be a common metric in businesses that leaders pay attention to and are deliberate about. If you understand ergodicity, you’re likelihood of success and quality of life will go up significantly and stress should be reduced too.
The big idea is to reduce irreversible, game over events in your life and increase the odds of smart bets that have high upside and low downside. He references James P. Carse’s great book Finite and Infinite Games and reframed it as irreversible and reversible games. He breaks down concepts such as the population outcome vs the lifetime outcome and uses the Russian roulette metaphor to demonstrate the difference in a very vivid way.
Here are some of the quotes and takeaways.
When people say that childhood was the best time of their lives, they usually miss reversibility.
It pays to redistribute, so that for each step forward, you only make a partial step back.
Avoiding the risks of ruin is how you get ahead in the long-term.
Maximizing the expected returns of your choices is a good strategy if and only if mistakes and misfortunes are reversible.
Behavioral change is non-ergodic. The distribution of efforts matters.
What is optimal in the presence of reversibility is stupid otherwise, and the other way around.
Sustainability is often a larger obstacle to performance than talent.
The easiest way to increase performance is to narrow the time frame over which it is measured. Sadly, it is also the easiest way to produce unsustainable performance.
It is not the best ones who succeed. It is the best ones of those who survive.
The easiest way to hide problems is to increase the scope of measurement.
Performance is subordinate to survival.
Problems grow the size they need for them to be acknowledged.
Over the short term, consequences that apply beyond the short-term do not matter. Over the long term, they do.
Irreversibility absorbs future gains.
Distinguish between calculated risks whose consequences you can recover from and recklessness whose consequences might permanently debilitate you. There is a sweet spot where you expose yourself to the former but not the latter – that’s a good place to aim.
For real people, the limitation on the number of times they can play can transform their lifetime outcome of a gamble to negative.
It is pointless to envy someone with whom you wouldn’t trade places in all parallel universes.
A system can work well on average and still fail locally.
As an individual, you do not care whether the system works on average. You care if it works for you.
The best strategy depends on whether you are the gamble or the gambler.
For most people, what matters is how much their lifetime outcome diverges from the population outcome in the medium term.
Systems that can instantaneously share load are more ergodic.
Game-overs are common. They include bankruptcies, injuries, severe depressions, burnouts, and break-ups of all kinds (between romantic partners, business partners, or friends).
I heard of ergodicity before from Nassim Taleb and had a surface level understanding of it. When I saw how many smart people recommended it as one of the
most important concepts to understand related to decision making I was interested to learn more.
I also heard great praises of Luca’s ability to communicate complex ideas in a digestible way.
After finishing the book, I think this may be one of the most important books for everyone to read. Ergodicity should be taught in school and it should be a common metric in businesses that leaders pay attention to and are deliberate about. If you understand ergodicity, you’re likelihood of success and quality of life will go up significantly and stress should be reduced too.
The big idea is to reduce irreversible, game over events in your life and increase the odds of smart bets that have high upside and low downside. He references James P. Carse’s great book Finite and Infinite Games and reframed it as irreversible and reversible games. He breaks down concepts such as the population outcome vs the lifetime outcome and uses the Russian roulette metaphor to demonstrate the difference in a very vivid way.
Here are some of the quotes and takeaways.
When people say that childhood was the best time of their lives, they usually miss reversibility.
It pays to redistribute, so that for each step forward, you only make a partial step back.
Avoiding the risks of ruin is how you get ahead in the long-term.
Maximizing the expected returns of your choices is a good strategy if and only if mistakes and misfortunes are reversible.
Behavioral change is non-ergodic. The distribution of efforts matters.
What is optimal in the presence of reversibility is stupid otherwise, and the other way around.
Sustainability is often a larger obstacle to performance than talent.
The easiest way to increase performance is to narrow the time frame over which it is measured. Sadly, it is also the easiest way to produce unsustainable performance.
It is not the best ones who succeed. It is the best ones of those who survive.
The easiest way to hide problems is to increase the scope of measurement.
Performance is subordinate to survival.
Problems grow the size they need for them to be acknowledged.
Over the short term, consequences that apply beyond the short-term do not matter. Over the long term, they do.
Irreversibility absorbs future gains.
Distinguish between calculated risks whose consequences you can recover from and recklessness whose consequences might permanently debilitate you. There is a sweet spot where you expose yourself to the former but not the latter – that’s a good place to aim.
For real people, the limitation on the number of times they can play can transform their lifetime outcome of a gamble to negative.
It is pointless to envy someone with whom you wouldn’t trade places in all parallel universes.
A system can work well on average and still fail locally.
As an individual, you do not care whether the system works on average. You care if it works for you.
The best strategy depends on whether you are the gamble or the gambler.
For most people, what matters is how much their lifetime outcome diverges from the population outcome in the medium term.
Systems that can instantaneously share load are more ergodic.
Game-overs are common. They include bankruptcies, injuries, severe depressions, burnouts, and break-ups of all kinds (between romantic partners, business partners, or friends).
November 3, 2020
To not spent time and money on books that you should not waste resources on, please first read this book. This is a great book for those who quickly want to familiarize themselves with the concept of ergodicity. The author goes to great lengths explaining the concept in easily understandable terms. He also offers several practical implications for navigating non-ergodic environments. Highly recommended!
September 30, 2022
Should have the sub-title of: "How potential irreversible outcomes affects long-term performance in work, investing, relationships, sport and beyond" (liked by the author on Twitter).
A very important concept explained for any activity which aims for long-term results (ie a relationship, career, investing, sports)
A very important concept explained for any activity which aims for long-term results (ie a relationship, career, investing, sports)
November 10, 2020
Explains a very central but obscure concept in pretty simple terms, with various examples of why it actually matters.
Quick read, it is not longer than it needs to be, which is very appreciated!
Quick read, it is not longer than it needs to be, which is very appreciated!
December 31, 2022
"If you have a job, do not attempt to work as hard as possible. Instead, work as hard as you can without risking your health, marriage, or mental sanity. These three are damn hard to recover once lost.[12] More in general, in any endeavor in which success depends on you accumulating some kind of resource (money, skill, connections, trust[13], etc.), do not maximize growth regardless of survival. Instead, maximize growth that conserves survival."
"Whenever an activity cannot be assumed repeatable at infinity, we should be wary of expecting to achieve its average outcome."
"- We call “population outcome” the outcome of many people performing an action once, and “lifetime outcome” the outcome of one person performing an action many times. If they differ, the system that produces them is non-ergodic. - You can only rely on expected outcomes if you are guaranteed a large number of repetitions. Otherwise, they are misleading. (The law of large numbers requires a large number of repetitions). - Risk aversion is rational in the presence of non-ergodicity"
"A common critique is, “decisions taken at lower levels are inefficient for they lack economies of scale.” However, they more than make it up with the benefits of tailoring. They provide more of what would be good for the province and less of what would be bad. Isn’t this efficiency?"
"You are not your habits nor your beliefs. You are their container. Their survival is not yours. What’s best for them might or might not be what’s best for you."
"- Use protections (of all kinds – Personal Protective Equipment, insurances, capped-downside options, and so on). "
"The Precautionary Principle holds that we should not take risks that endanger the whole,[72] no matter how unlikely. If we keep taking them, we are guaranteed to blow up (remember the Russian Roulette player?)."
"It is not the best ones who succeed. It is the best ones of those who survive."
"Problems grow the size they need for them to be acknowledged."
"Whenever an activity cannot be assumed repeatable at infinity, we should be wary of expecting to achieve its average outcome."
"- We call “population outcome” the outcome of many people performing an action once, and “lifetime outcome” the outcome of one person performing an action many times. If they differ, the system that produces them is non-ergodic. - You can only rely on expected outcomes if you are guaranteed a large number of repetitions. Otherwise, they are misleading. (The law of large numbers requires a large number of repetitions). - Risk aversion is rational in the presence of non-ergodicity"
"A common critique is, “decisions taken at lower levels are inefficient for they lack economies of scale.” However, they more than make it up with the benefits of tailoring. They provide more of what would be good for the province and less of what would be bad. Isn’t this efficiency?"
"You are not your habits nor your beliefs. You are their container. Their survival is not yours. What’s best for them might or might not be what’s best for you."
"- Use protections (of all kinds – Personal Protective Equipment, insurances, capped-downside options, and so on). "
"The Precautionary Principle holds that we should not take risks that endanger the whole,[72] no matter how unlikely. If we keep taking them, we are guaranteed to blow up (remember the Russian Roulette player?)."
"It is not the best ones who succeed. It is the best ones of those who survive."
"Problems grow the size they need for them to be acknowledged."
September 11, 2021
Without understanding and regarding ergodicity there won't be any useful advances in "sciences" like economics, psychology, social sciences and the like... Ergodicity is also a large component to grasping RISK in any domain - especially in business; Anyone interested in any domains mentioned above (and in risk - anyone should, it's an essential building block to many things in life) - can only benefit from meditating on ergodicity for a bit - and this short book is the ideal guide for it.
January 9, 2021
Every now and then, a book arrives that helps me to understand a gut feeling that I’ve had for a long time but couldn’t put the finger on it.
This is one of those rare books. If you – like me – don’t even know the word “ergodocity”, this book is for you. It’s readable and practically applicable for everyone.
This is one of those rare books. If you – like me – don’t even know the word “ergodocity”, this book is for you. It’s readable and practically applicable for everyone.
November 6, 2022
Tengo sentimientos encontrados con este libro.
Por un lado, la explicación de Luca Dellanna sobre qué es la ergodicidad, junto a los ejemplos utilizados, quizás sea la explicación más clara sobre el concepto que me haya encontrado. Mucho más clara incluso que las del propio autor del concepto (Ole Peters). En este sentido, hay que felicitar al autor, porque ha hecho un buen trabajo.
Por otro lado, una vez definido el concepto, el libro me ha resultado bastante repetitivo; en mi caso, además, habiendo leído antes los libros de Nassim Taleb, he encontrado mucho solapamiento entre ambos. Para ser justos, Dellanna reconoce desde el principio su deuda intelectual con Taleb, pero eso no reduce mi sensación de estar leyendo una antología abreviada de textos de Taleb.
Aun así, el concepto de ergodicidad me parece un concepto importantísimo, y en ese sentido no hay que desmerecer esta gran contribución de Luca Dellanna al tema. 3,5/5.
Por un lado, la explicación de Luca Dellanna sobre qué es la ergodicidad, junto a los ejemplos utilizados, quizás sea la explicación más clara sobre el concepto que me haya encontrado. Mucho más clara incluso que las del propio autor del concepto (Ole Peters). En este sentido, hay que felicitar al autor, porque ha hecho un buen trabajo.
Por otro lado, una vez definido el concepto, el libro me ha resultado bastante repetitivo; en mi caso, además, habiendo leído antes los libros de Nassim Taleb, he encontrado mucho solapamiento entre ambos. Para ser justos, Dellanna reconoce desde el principio su deuda intelectual con Taleb, pero eso no reduce mi sensación de estar leyendo una antología abreviada de textos de Taleb.
Aun así, el concepto de ergodicidad me parece un concepto importantísimo, y en ese sentido no hay que desmerecer esta gran contribución de Luca Dellanna al tema. 3,5/5.
March 19, 2022
I had never heard of ergodicity, but it turns out to be an interesting state of a system. "A system is ergodic if, for all its components,the lifetime outcome corresponds to the population outcome." This matters because we end up acting as if systems are ergodic when they are not. In other words, we make decisions based on population outcomes, assuming that they are applicable to our actual lifetime outcome. In a non-ergodic system, they are not.
October 5, 2022
Great book to read alongside with Taleb’s Anti-fragile.
Key take aways: the importance of buffers and be careful of optimization (optimizing ST != optimization LT), averages can be misleading (can hide problems of sub-populations) & skin in the game
Key take aways: the importance of buffers and be careful of optimization (optimizing ST != optimization LT), averages can be misleading (can hide problems of sub-populations) & skin in the game
August 29, 2023
While the concept itself is of great importance in life, it wasn’t revealing anything new for me.
Basically, in short the book tels you to not do things that can cause permanent loss, even when the chances of that loss occurring is small.
Basically, in short the book tels you to not do things that can cause permanent loss, even when the chances of that loss occurring is small.
November 18, 2023
3.5 stars. Short and to the point.
January 2, 2024
Highly recommend if you like Taleb
April 23, 2024
Excellent.
Like other books from the same author, very clear explanations that elicit understanding about complex topics.
Like other books from the same author, very clear explanations that elicit understanding about complex topics.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews