What is the Lindy Effect?

“I follow the Lindy effect as a guide in selecting what to read: books that have been around for ten years will be around for ten more; books that have been around for two millennia should be around for quite a bit of time, and so forth.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb — Antifragile

Today’s idea comes from the book Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In his book, he discusses a phenomenon called the Lindy Effect and how he applies it to select what books he reads.

What is the Lindy Effect?

Most ideas have a finite life. The length of an idea’s life is a function of how good of an idea it is. Time kills ideas, and only the strongest survive. The Lindy Effect simply stated is that the older something is, the more likely it will be around in the future. It is a simple way to estimate how long a non-perishable idea will last or remain relevant. The assumption is that the idea will be around at least as long as it already has existed. We can look at any idea through the lens of the Lindy Effect — buildings, cities, economies, technology, and books.

The Lindy Effect is named after a deli called Lindy in New York City. According to Taleb, “Actors who hung out there gossiping about other actors discovered that Broadway shows that lasted, say one hundred days, had a future life expectancy of a hundred more. For those that lasted two hundred days, two hundred more. The heuristic became known as the Lindy Effect.”