Scientific Definition
Bet size optimized to maximize long-run growth without ruin.
Plain-English Definition
Bet size optimized to maximize long-run growth without ruin.
Feynman Explanation
Bet too big and you blow up. Bet too small and you starve.
Core Principle
Bet size optimized to maximize long-run growth without ruin.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Bet size optimized to maximize long-run growth without ruin.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Sizing big bets so the org can survive losing them.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Bet too big and you blow up. Bet too small and you starve.
Examples
- Position sizing in investing and in capital allocation.
- Sizing big bets so the org can survive losing them.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Size every major bet by survivability, not just expected value.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Size every major bet by survivability, not just expected value.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Ignoring general statistics in favor of specific, vivid information.
Posterior = (likelihood × prior) / evidence.
Update beliefs in proportion to the strength of new evidence.
Start with a prior; update with new evidence.
Novices experiencing early success, often due to variance and small samples.
High-impact, hard-to-predict, retrospectively explainable events.
Striking pattern that is statistically expected in large samples.
Reasoning in distributions — ranges and probabilities — rather than points.
Average outcomes across the population differ from outcomes across time for one person.
A rough calculation using order-of-magnitude reasoning.
In quantum mechanics, certain pairs of properties cannot both be precisely known.
We ignore sample size when judging probability.