The 80/20 Rule

Most stories about the 80/20 rule start with Vilfredo Pareto, a truly international guy. He was an Italian economist but he was born in France and he studied the distribution of wealth in England. The story goes that he first got interested in the phenomenon when he noticed that 20% of the pea pods in his garden produced 80% of the peas. He later looked at land ownership and noticed that 82% of Italian land was owned by 20% of the people. Then he discovered…