A couple of nights back
I watched the normally media-shy billionaire investor Ronald Perelman being interviewed on Donny Deutsch's show ‘The Big
Idea'. While it was interesting to hear him talk about his successes and
failures, I was most impressed by Mr. Perelman’s sense of humility with regards
to what he has achieved. In my mind the “big idea” behind the interview was
Perelman’s acknowledgment that a great deal of his success had to do with “luck”:
He was born into a good family, he was able to get a great education, and some
great opportunities were put in front of him. Yes he worked hard, but at
no point did a sense of entitlement creep into his talk of success. Quite the
opposite.
Same thing goes for
Warren Buffett. He often demonstrates his belief that success has a lot to do
with luck and circumstance through something called “The Ovarian Lottery.” I
think there is a lesson to be learned from this hypothetical situation.
Mr. Buffett often talks
about the Ovarian Lottery when speaking around the country, including last year
at a talk with Wharton MBA students (full disclosure: my Alma Matar). It goes
something like this: What would you do if a genie came to you and told you that
you had 24 hours to design the world (political, economic and social systems)
into which you are going to born? But the catch was that you had to redraw 100
tickets from the lottery pool (the entire world) that would ultimately place
you in someone else’s shoes (each ticket represents a person that you could end
up being)? You may be black or white, rich or poor, male or female, able-minded
and able-bodied or not. Would you trade in your ticket (who you are now) for
that opportunity?
Most of the people
sitting in that Wharton MBA class would not. Most of you connected to the
internet reading this post on a site about financial prosperity and social giving
would not and certainly, Mr. Buffett would not. That’s because we have it
pretty good, and that is a striking point. We live in a rich country and have a
system that provides relatively abundant opportunity compared with most of the
world. So if we had to pick again, chances are we would not fare so well (given
that there are nearly 6.5 billion people in this world).
All this to say that
circumstances and chance are an important part of whether or not a person is
successful. As Buffett put it, “if all of us were stranded on a desert
island the most valuable person would be the one who could raise the most rice”
(although I think if you gave him a coke bottle and pencil and paper he would
find a way to make money stranded on an island).
Which begs the question.
What is our responsibility to give back? Maybe we can’t always change the
system for people, and we definitely can’t redraw the lottery to give people
new tickets. But the least we can do is realize that we were lucky to draw the
cards that we did and that we should try to help those that did not share in
our luck. I’m happy to know that Ron Perelman shares in that realization.
For two ways to help
level the playing field visit: Kiva and/or Donors Choose.
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Excellent thought experience... my answer would be Sweden or Norway.
Instead of using the investment analogy of ROIC for every area in our society, maybe we should should ask this important question to all our leaders, particularly political.
Posted by: Hopton | April 11, 2007 at 06:42 PM