This article explains in detail why successful people tend to continue to achieve greater success through the concept of 'Preferential Attachment'. This phenomenon is not simply due to luck, but a small advantage in the early stages creates an increasingly larger difference in the repeated decision-making process, leading to an overwhelming winner. It is explained with various examples. Understanding these principles, found in business, science, and even everyday life, can provide valuable insight into what we build and how we prioritize.
1. Preferential attachment: The secret of the winner-takes-all phenomenon ๐คซ
There is a phenomenon in the world where **winners seem to keep winning. People who are already ahead tend to get further ahead, and successful people tend to receive greater rewards. Network scientists call this phenomenon 'Preferential Attachment'. Originally, this concept was used to describe the tendency to select nodes that are already most connected when new nodes are connected, such as in the Internet or power grid. But this principle has much broader applications and produces surprising and overwhelming **Power Law results**.
This principle can be thought of simply. For example, when a new person has to decide something, people usually pick what seems best. At this point, they rely on various indicators such as crowd signals, rankings, number of reviews, etc. In this way, the previous leader gains more trust, and when the next person comes along, the same decision is seen as a better choice. This can be said to be a process where rational decision-making is repeated and the leader's advantage is further strengthened.
2. Preferential attachment phenomenon found in various fields ๐ฌThe basic idea of โโthis preferential attachment has already been discovered and rediscovered in many different academic fields. It's like the same phenomenon goes by many names!* Sociology: It is known as the Matthew effect, which comes from a Bible verse and means 'to those who have, more will be given.' It explains the phenomenon of already famous scientists receiving more recognition for their discoveries.
- Statistics: The Yule process, proposed in 1925, studies how genera accumulate more species during evolution.
- Information Science: Called cumulative advantage, it was used by Price in 1965 and 1976 to explain why some research papers receive numerous citations while most are ignored.
- Economics: There are several overlapping versions, such as Gibrat's law (law of proportional growth, 1931). The idea is that a company's growth rate is independent of its size, meaning that larger companies achieve much greater absolute benefits when they have the same growth rate (e.g. 10%). This concept also appears in extensive research on concentration of wealth and winner-takes-all markets.
- Biology/Evolution: In the way species multiply, how protein networks accumulate connections, and how barnacles settle on surfaces that already have barnacles on them.
- Linguistics: Explains word frequency distribution, such as Zipf's law. Common words tend to be reused more because they are common.
- Computer Science/Information Retrieval: The basic principles of Google's PageRank algorithm. Pages that are linked to by many other pages rank higher, get more visibility, and get more links. Recommendation systems and 'trending' algorithms also work according to this principle.
- Demographics/Urban Studies: Describes the size distribution of cities. Big cities attract jobs, which attract people, which in turn attract more people.attracts jobs, resulting in a few large cities and many small villages.---
3. Examples of preferential attachment in everyday life ๐ก
This phenomenon can be easily found not only in the academic field but also in our daily lives. It's really amazing, isn't it?
- Radio Popularity: Before the age of streaming, songs that received any airplay received more requests, which led to more airplay. DJs played popular songs, which made them even more popular. While small initial interest snowballs into a hit song, even similarly good songs often disappear if they do not receive attention from the beginning.
- Crowded Restaurant: When you walk down the street and choose a restaurant, what if one place is full and the other is empty? Most people will choose crowded areas. Because 'crowded' seems like a good sign. This choice we make has the effect of making the restaurant more crowded for the next person to come as well.
- Number of followers: People find people who are already followed by a lot of other people more attractive. Social accounts with more followers are exposed to more people, which leads to more followers, which in turn makes them visible to more people. The crowd exerts the power of persuasion. (The same goes for dating, but it's a bit more complicated ๐)
You can also see this phenomenon in clichรฉs in business culture. Just like Alec Baldwin's famous line.
"Always be closing!"
"Always focus on finishing!"
This iconic line from the young and handsome Alec Baldwin applies to everything.
4. The chain effect of preferential attachment and success โจThis preferential attachment also plays a very important role in startup success. Marc Andreessen described the startup game as a challenge to accumulate new resources and gain momentum.
Startup success (or so it seems) compounds step by step by taking the lead. Great entrepreneurs get better demos and initial response, which leads them to attract good first investments, which in turn attract better engineers and build better products. This product attracts the most customers, which makes your next investment easier and attracts more talent and customers. And then investing becomes easier, creating a virtuous cycle of success.
The winner is like a snowball that adds more snow as it rolls. With each roll, their advantage grows. Preferential attachment is the core mechanism that produces these overwhelming results.
This is one of the reasons why investor reputation is so important. We put a lot of effort into working with startups to build a strong group of co-investors, refine their story, and secure leadership in their field. If you get a strong signal early on, the momentum quickly produces a compounding effect, and the speed itself becomes another signal.
"Nobody got fired for buying IBM"
(If corporate buyers chose IBM, the current market leader, it meant they felt their jobs were safe, even if a smaller startup had a more attractive product.)
These words reveal the hidden truth of preferential attachment. And this is why the advice "Fake it until you make it" is often repeated. Even when it is unclear who is leading, it is important to send a signal that you are leading.
5. Preferential attachment in sports and social inequality ๐This dynamic applies in sports as well. Being the best player on your team comes with great rewards. On the other hand, players in the lower ranks have limitations that make it extremely difficult to improve. There is even a saying that 3rd place is the same as being fired.
The clearest data-based example of this phenomenon is birth dates of Canadian youth hockey players. The age standard for youth leagues is January 1, so a child born in early January and a child born in December will be in the same age group even though the difference is almost a year. At age 8 or 9, this growth difference is huge. Since a January child is bigger, faster, and more coordinated, coaches will judge him as a more talented athlete and send him to an elite team.
In elite teams, January-born children get more training time, more professional coaching, and stronger opponents. On the other hand, children born in December stay on the recreation team and experience less of all three. This advantage of a small, arbitrary start can snowball into real skill differences and even determine your fate.
This extends to the professional squad. The best players get top contracts, appear on posters and sell more merchandise. And you get more advertising contracts, more income, more fame. That reputation creates a cycle that leads to higher ticket sales, higher contract values, and more advertising deals.
This power-law effect is so extreme that there is research showing that salary caps can disproportionately disadvantage star players. An interesting study by Planet Money economists called "When a Killer Steals a Gun" delves into this topic.
The same goes for social media.* YouTube clip creators can use the faces of famous podcasters to get views. By doing so, famous podcasters become even more famous.
- The most popular podcasters have the biggest audiences, so they can invite the most famous guests. These exclusive guests attract more listeners, and the cycle continues.
6. Strategy using preferential attachment ๐
So what should we do? If you're building anything - a newsletter, a business, a band, a YouTube channel - these principles should change the way you think and prioritize.** Here are some tips!* Know the value of early momentum: Early momentum is worth more than you think. Your first 100 true fans are very important. Because they are the starter of the snowball** and serve as a signal to the next person that others are already here. (This may be why Paul Graham's YC advice is to "do the things that can't scale" and focus on acquiring early customers manually by any means necessary.)
- Early leaders can beat quality: The best product doesn't always win. Often the product that gets traction first wins. If you have to choose between perfecting your product for another year or releasing a half-baked version in space that no one has yet taken, that's why you need to launch quickly. If you want to attract people, you have to start early enough.
- Do everything to be #1: The difference in value between #1 and #2 can be as much as 100 times. Scratch, tear, and fight your way to first place. First place is worth much, much, much more than second place.
- Show your success: Popularity is a signal, so hiding your traction is foolish**. Interest breeds interest, so keep sharing evidence of your progress.
- Push further on what's working: When something starts to take off, it's easy to have an instinct to reduce risk. But what's working well is already snowballing. Pushing it further is more profitable than diversifying. (I've made this mistake many times. ๐ )
Lastly, I will introduce you to some impressive quotes that further reinforce this idea!> "Being a winner means being in the top 99.99 percentile. The winner at the top takes almost everything, and everyone else gets a very small share. So the top 99.99 percentile is simply worth an order or two more than the 98 percentile. That's why if it's 1 a.m. and you already have something really good, it's worth spending the next few hours making it really amazing."
"Don't be distracted: Focusing on one thing increases your return per unit of effort. At a micro level, an extra hour of focus on your current project yields a much higher return than an hour on a new one, or even worse, than investing five minutes each on a dozen new ones. Before you start something new, **understand the opportunity cost compared to existing ones. Don't rationalize something you don't want as complementary! At a macro level, **applied Understanding that effort has a convex output curve is a very useful discipline when considering new market areas. This convexity means that unless the new area is incredibly valuable, anything that can be done to extend the existing convex curve is much more valuable."
"In the age of leverage, it is very important to be at the extremes of your field." - Naval