Lindy Effect
Lindy’s was a deli on Broadway and 51st Street in New York City. In the early 1960s, comedians gathered there to gossip and analyze their careers over cheesecake. They noticed a pattern: TV comedians with frequent gigs faded quickly. Those who paced their appearances lasted longer.
Albert Goldman wrote it up in The New Republic in 1964: a show running two weeks would likely last another two. A show running two years could expect two more.
The heuristic applies to non-perishable things — technologies, ideas, books, institutions. Things without built-in expiration dates.
A book in print for 50 years will likely be in print for 50 more. A book in print for 500 years will likely last 500 more. The Bible, Homer, Euclid — 2,000+ years and counting.
Technologies too. The wheel, the lever, the written word. Each additional year of survival increases expected remaining lifespan.
This inverts the new/old hierarchy. The newest tech is the most fragile. The oldest is the most proven.
A cryptocurrency launched last year faces worse odds than gold, which has been money for 5,000 years. A JavaScript framework from 2023 faces worse odds than the spreadsheet, which has been solving business problems since VisiCalc in 1979.
Nassim Taleb formalized this in Antifragile (2012): “Time is equivalent to disorder. Resistance to the ravages of time, what we gloriously call survival, is the ability to handle disorder.”
Things that last have survived multiple attempts to kill them. Each crisis they survive strengthens the evidence that they’ll survive the next one.
The effect doesn’t apply to perishable things. A 90-year-old human doesn’t have 90 years of life expectancy remaining. Humans have natural lifespans. Technologies and ideas don’t.
Old things get replaced by superior alternatives all the time. The heuristic applies when you’re uncertain — when you’re betting on what will still matter in 30 years, favor the Lindy.
What survived the past is better positioned to survive the future.
Go Deeper
Books
- Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb — Chapter 16 “A Lesson in Disorder” provides the formal treatment of the Lindy Effect.
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb — The earlier exploration of survivorship bias and prediction.
Essays
- Albert Goldman’s original 1964 piece in The New Republic introduced the concept, though the heuristic was later expanded far beyond its showbiz origins.
Related: [[antifragility]], [[maintenance]], [[fat-tails]]