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The role of luck in careers, companies, and compensation
运气在事业、公司和薪酬中的作用
Luck plays a big and often unacknowledged part in career success, starting in the womb. Warren Buffett has talked of winning the “ovarian lottery” by being born in America when he was, and being wired in a way that pays off in a market economy.
运气在职业成功中的作用往往被低估，这种影响从出生前便已注定。沃伦·巴菲特曾谈及自己赢得的“卵巢彩票”——他恰逢其时地出生在美国，并天生具备能让他在市场经济中获得成功的思维方式。
Good looks are associated with higher pay and a greater chance of being called to interview in hiring processes. Your experience of discrimination will reflect your circumstances of birth.
外貌优势与更高薪酬密切相关，招聘过程中颜值出众者也更容易获得面试机会，而一个人遭遇歧视的经历往往与其出身背景紧密相连。
The early way-stations in a career are often marked by chance: a particularly encouraging boss, say, or an assignment that leads you off in an unexpected but defining direction. Luck can affect the pathways of the most rational-minded professions.
职业生涯早期的转折点往往由偶然事件塑造。比如遇到一位鼓舞人心的上司，或者一份将你引向意外却关键方向的工作任务。即便在最理性的专业领域，运气仍能左右发展路径。
There is a long-running debate about whether luck affects executives’ pay.
关于运气是否会影响高管薪酬的争论由来已久。
A recent paper by Martina Andreani and Lakshmanan Shivakumar of London Business School and Atif Ellahie of the University of Utah suggests that it does.
伦敦商学院的马丁娜·安德烈亚尼、拉希曼南·西瓦库玛以及犹他大学的阿蒂夫·艾拉伊在最新研究中给出了肯定答案。
The academics looked at the impact of a big corporate-tax cut in America in 2017, an event which resulted in large one-off tax gains and losses for firms that were based on past transactions and that could not be attributed to managers’ skills.
学者们分析了2017年美国大幅削减公司税的影响，这一事件导致部分企业因过往交易产生巨额一次性税务损益，与管理者的能力无关。
They found that larger windfall gains led to higher pay for CEOs of less scrutinised firms; tax losses did not seem to affect their earnings. Lucky things.
研究发现，监管较松的企业若获得意外之财，其CEO薪酬会显著上涨；而税务亏损则几乎不影响高管收入——真是幸运啊。
Just as some people blindly believe that merit determines success, so it is possible to get too hung up on the role of chance. CEOs may well be rewarded for luck but slogging to the top of companies involves talent and hard work.
然而，就像有些人过度迷信运气可以决定成败一样，我们也可能太过看重机遇的作用。尽管CEO可能因运气获得回报，但攀登企业顶峰仍需才能与勤勉。
A paper from 2006 by Paul Gompers of Harvard University and his co-authors showed that founders of one successful company have a higher chance of succeeding in their next venture than entrepreneurs who previously failed.
哈佛大学的保罗·冈珀斯等人在2006年发表的一篇论文显示，曾成功创办企业的创业者再次成功的概率远高于有过失败经历者。
Better technology and greater expertise reduce the role of chance; the average success rates in oil exploration, for example, have gone up over time.
技术进步与专业知识积累正在压缩运气的空间：以石油勘探为例，随着时间推移，行业平均成功率已逐步攀升。
But if luck does play a more important role in outcomes than is often acknowledged, what does that mean?
但是，如果运气的作用远超常人认知，那这意味着什么？
For individuals, it suggests you should increase the chances that chance will work in your favour.
对于个人来说，这表示你应该增加自己获得好运的几率。
Partners at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, encourage founders to apply to their programmes by talking about increasing the “surface area of luck”: putting yourself in situations where you may be rejected is a way of giving luck more opportunity to strike.
谈及扩大“幸运表面积”时，创业孵化公司Y Combinator的合伙人们鼓励创业者通过反复申请项目增加机遇。把自己置于可能被拒绝的情况下，可以增加好运降临的几率。
An awareness of the role that luck plays ought to affect the behaviour of managers, too.
运气会带来影响，这种认识也应该影响管理者的行为。
If luck can mean a bad decision has a good result, or vice versa, managers should learn to assess the success of an initiative on the basis of process as well as outcome. And if the difference between skill and luck becomes discernible over time, then reward people on consistency of performance, not one-off highs.
如果糟糕决策可能因运气获利，或者反过来优秀方案因偶然失利，则管理者的考核重点应转向过程质量而非单一结果。此外，随着时间推移，能力与运气的分野将逐渐显现，则奖励机制应更关注持续稳定的表现，而非昙花一现的高光时刻。
Mr Buffett might have had a slice of luck at the outset, but a lifetime of investing success suggests he has maximised it.
巴菲特的投资传奇或许始于一丝运气，但他用一生的成功投资表明，他已将这份运气发挥到了极致。
