The book I wrote was called“Liar’s Poker”.It sold a million copies.I was 28years old.I had a career，a little fame，a small fortune and a new life narrative.All of a sudden people were telling me I was born to be a writer.This was absurd.Even I could see there was another，truer narrative，with luck as its theme.What were the odds of being seated at that dinner next to that Salomon Brothers lady？Of landing inside the best Wall Street firm from which to write the story of an age？Of landing in the seat with the best view of the business？Of having parents who didn‘t disinherit me but instead sighed and said“do it if you must？”Of having had that sense of must kindled inside me by a professor of art history at Princeton？Of having been let into Princeton in the first place？This isn’t just false humility.It‘s false humility with a point.My case illustrates how success is always rationalized.People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck—especially successful people.As they age and succeed，people feel their success was somehow inevitable.They don‘t want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives.There is a reason for this：the world does not want to acknowledge it either.
I wrote a book about this，called“Money ball”.It was ostensibly about baseball but was in fact about something else.There are poor teams and rich teams in professional baseball，and they spend radically different sums of money on their players.When I wrote my book，the richest team in professional baseball，the New York Yankees，was then spending about120million on its 25players.The poorest team，the Oakland A’s，was spending about30million.And yet the Oakland team was winning as many games as the Yankees—and more than all the other richer teams.
This isn‘t supposed to happen.In theory，the rich teams should buy the best players and win all the time.But the Oakland team had figured something out：the rich teams didn’t really understand who the best baseball players were.The players were disvalued.And the biggest single reason they were disvalued was that the experts did not pay sufficient attention to the role of luck in baseball success.Players got given credit for things they did that depended on the performance of others：pitchers got paid for winning games，hitters got paid for knocking in runners on base.Players got blamed and credited for events beyond their control，where balls that got hit happened to land on the field，for example.
Forget baseball，forget sports.Here you had these corporate employees，paid millions of dollars a year.They were doing exactly the same job that people in their business had been doing forever.In front of millions of people，who evaluate their every move.They had statistics attached to everything they did.And yet they were disvalued—because the wider world was blind to their luck.
You have to ask：if a professional athlete paid millions of dollars can be disvalued，who can‘t be？If the supposedly pure meritocracy of professional sports can’t distinguish between lucky and good，who can？
The“Money ball”story has practical implications.If you use better data，you can find better values；there are always market inefficiencies to exploit，and so on.But it has a broader and less practical message：don‘t be deceived by life’s outcomes.Life‘s outcomes，while not entirely random，have a huge amount of luck baked into them.Above all，recognize that if you have had success，you have also had luck—and with luck comes obligation.You owe a debt，and not just to your Gods.You owe a debt to the unlucky.
I make this point because—along with this speech—it is something that will be easy for you to forget.
I now live in Berkeley，California.A few years ago，just a few blocks from my home，a pair of researchers in the Cal psychology department staged an experiment.They began by grabbing students as lab rats.Then they broke the students into teams，segregated by sex.Three men or three women per team.Then they put these teams of three into a room，and arbitrarily assigned one of the three to act as leader.Then they gave them some complicated moral problem to solve：say what should be done about academic cheating，or how to regulate drinking on campus.
Exactly 30minutes into the problem-solving the researchers interrupted each group.They entered the room bearing a plate of cookies.Four cookies.The team consisted of three people，but there were these four cookies.Every team member obviously got one cookie，but that left a fourth cookie，just sitting there.It should have been awkward.But it wasn’t.With incredible consistency，the person arbitrarily appointed leader of the group grabbed the fourth cookie and ate it.Not only ate it，but ate it with gusto：lips smacking，mouth open，drool at the corners of their mouths.In the end all that was left of the extra cookie were crumbs on the leader‘s shirt.
This leader had performed no special task.He had no special virtue.He’d been chosen at random，30minutes earlier.His status was nothing but luck.But it still left him with the sense that the cookie should be his.
This experiment helps to explain Wall Street bonuses and CEO pay，and I‘m sure lots of other human behavior.But it also is relevant to new graduates of Princeton University.In a general sort of way you have been appointed the leader of the group.Your appointment may not be entirely arbitrary.But you must sense its arbitrary aspect：you are the lucky few.Lucky in your parents，lucky in your country，lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people，introduce them to other lucky people and increase their chances of becoming even luckier.Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen，in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything.
