"winners keep winning.  This idea is formally known as cumulative advantage, or the Matthew effect, and explains how those who start with an advantage relative to others can retain that advantage over long periods of time."

"The Matthew effect explains how two people can start in nearly the same place and end up worlds apart.  In these kinds of systems, initial conditions matter.  And as time goes on, they matter more and more."

"With that 20% initial advantage, the final market share increases significantly."

"The purpose of this simulation is to demonstrate how important starting conditions are when determining long term outcomes."

"a few lucky (or unlucky) breaks early on can have lasting effects over decades."

"accepting luck as a primary determinant in your life is one of the most freeing ways to view the world."

"when you realize the magnitude of happenstance and serendipity in your life, you can stop judging yourself on your outcomes and start focusing on your efforts.  It’s the only thing you can control."

"don’t let good luck put you on a pedestal, but don’t let bad luck knock you down either."

"some of us are born with more advantages than others and some of us are born with less, but you should never let that define how hard you try."

"In 1986, once the secret was out, King re-released all of Bachman’s published works under his real name and they skyrocketed up bestseller lists."

"The first run of Thinner had sold 28,000 copies — the most of any Bachman book and above average for an author."

"The moment it became known that Richard Bachman was Stephen King, however, the Bachman books took off with sales quickly reaching 3 million copies."

"This phenomenon isn’t exclusive to Stephen King either. J.K. Rowling published a book called The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pen name Robert Galbraith only to be outed by someone performing advanced text analysis with a computer."

"Both King and Rowling’s foray into undercover writing reveals a harsh truth about success and social status — winners keep winning."

"This idea is formally known as cumulative advantage, or the Matthew effect, and explains how those who start with an advantage relative to others can retain that advantage over long periods of time."

"As we expect, the mean final market share with no starting advantage is 25% with a very small standard deviation."

"what if we rigged the game such that we gave a particular color an advantage to start?"

"What is even more amazing is that this advantage was only given in the first round and everything after that was left to chance."

"We like to think in America that most things come down to hard work, but a few lucky (or unlucky) breaks early on can have lasting effects over decades."

"In all the lives you could be living, in all of the worlds you could simulate, how much did luck play a role in this one?"

"I ask you this question because accepting luck as a primary determinant in your life is one of the most freeing ways to view the world."

"Because when you realize the magnitude of happenstance and serendipity in your life, you can stop judging yourself on your outcomes and start focusing on your efforts.  It’s the only thing you can control."

"Yes, some of us are born with more advantages than others and some of us are born with less, but you should never let that define how hard you try."