Too Lazy to Read the Paper

In this podcast the author explains a paper to me, your host, Professor Sune Lehmann (https://sunelehmann.com). The participants are authors of a paper in network science or data science. Sometimes I feature a group of co-authors! The intended audience is PhD students, PostDocs and other scientists. The idea is to start with a bit about the paper's author, the idea for the paper. Then talk about the research itself. And we’ll end by gossiping about the reviewing process, etc. The whole thing is based on the idea that papers are so formal. And that when two people talk to each other informally, it’s often more fun – and tends to get ideas across more effectively.

All Episodes

Too Lazy to Read the Paper

Too Lazy to Read the Paper. Episode 2 with Roberta Sinatra

April 15, 2021 • Sune Lehmann • Season 1 • Episode 2

This time we meet with physicist, expert on science of succes, and all-round amazing person, Roberta Sinatra. She talks about her recent paper "Success and luck in creative careers" (1). Along the way, we talk about her academic background, earlier work and what lead her to discuss the role of luck.

Roberta uses a few slides for talk, you can find them here if you're listening to the audio podcast http://www.robertasinatra.com/pdf/Sinatra_toolazytoreadthepaper.pdf

[0:00:00] Sune shamelessly fishing for compliments about the podcast trailer.
[0:02:19] We talk about Roberta's past work, ending up in Boston and working on success.
[0:10:29] Why Roberta is a scientist, the experience of working in BarabasiLab.
[0:20:20] How did the question of *Luck* enter into Roberta's research?
[0:32:08] The difficulty of finding the right question. Being in "the cloud" (2).
[0:37:00] A solution begins to present itself. The Q-model.
[0:44:53] Decomposing success into skill and luck.
[0:48:47] Data sources, proxies (+ power-laws vs log-normals).
[0:55:45] Sune's mind is blown learning about multiplicative luck. The comic in ref (3) on cumulative effects is on his mind.
[1:03:30] Getting to the results of the paper!
[1:14:07] How is talent inherited?
[1:19:54] Wrapping up!

(1) Janosov, M., Battiston, F., & Sinatra, R. (2020). Success and luck in creative careers. EPJ Data Science, 9(1), 9.
(2) https://www.ted.com/talks/uri_alon_why_science_demands_a_leap_into_the_unknown
(3) https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate