No. 216 · Strategy · General Thinking
Luck Surface Area
You cannot control luck, but you can widen the area it can land on.
In the Almanac
“Fleming’s mouldy dish”, 1928 · “Chobani”, 2005
Both stories in full, three ways to use it and where it misleads.
Get the AlmanacQuestions
What is Luck Surface Area?
Luck Surface Area is the idea that your chances of good fortune grow with how much you do and how many people know about it. Every project you share and every conversation you start gives chance a bigger target.
How do you use Luck Surface Area?
Use it by sharing your work publicly, saying yes to small invitations and running many cheap experiments. Prepare to notice opportunities when they appear. Just protect your time and energy, because not every attempt will pay off.
When does Luck Surface Area matter?
Luck Surface Area is one of the 56 mental models for strategy, the situations where you ask: How do I win when others want the same thing? Within that, it belongs to “Finding opportunities”, alongside Arbitrage, Idea Maze and Joy’s Law.
What is an example of Luck Surface Area?
Two stories show it at work: Fleming’s mouldy dish (1928) and Chobani (2005). Both are told in full in The Mental Models Daily Almanac, which has two stories for each of its 365 models.
Which mental models are related to Luck Surface Area?
Preserving Optionality, Fat-Tailed Distributions and Randomness. Luck Surface Area itself comes from general thinking.