One of the best set of podcast episodes I ever heard (there are many great podcasts out there, but this is one of them) was on Heavyweight.

It's about one of Jonathan Goldstein's friends (Gregor) who is trying to retrieve a CD set of Alan Lomax recordings from ... Moby, of all people.

This podcast is brilliant to me because, while it somehow manages to be comically absurd, it also raises all sorts of issues about success and credit and how it is achieved, and what worth that actually has. The Lomax recordings, for example, were arguably central to Play as an album, and it was Gregor that introduced Moby to them. So although Gregor just wants his CDs back, by the end of it, a lot of issues are raised about how much credit Gregor really deserves for Play, and Moby's resulting success from that album. Gregor himself isn't looking for financial compensation or anything, but you kind of start to wonder if Moby should have done more for him interpersonally or something, or in terms of acknowledgements and introductions and something, if nothing else as a friend.

But then you meet Moby, and you find out he was severely depressed after the album came and went, because he's realized he's been one fad in a stream of fads, and that a lot of the issues he had in his life weren't going to be addressed by the fame. But then again, he's sitting in this really nice house, and doing pretty well for himself, and he still doesn't give the CDs back to Gregor, and dodges the issue almost entirely, other than to say they're locked in an archive somewhere that Gregor can't get to.

I'm approaching a point in my career and age where I'm looking back and myself and looking at others, and starting to feel like a lot of success is just luck, or chance, or coincidence, or something like that. Not all of it, but more than we give it credit. I also feel like it operates in these subtle, cumulative sorts of ways. I'm also frustrated because it seems like people go through these contortions of hindsight bias and selection bias and all sorts of other things to justify these things post hoc, or that discussions become distorted.

For example, Phelps is a great swimmer and I don't mean to suggest he doesn't deserve his medals. I also don't want to suggest that Moby lacks talent or something. But what if Gregor hadn't shared those Lomax recordings with him? Would Gregor's career been different if Moby had actually shown thanks to Gregor, by forging connections for him, etc.?

I have a mentor and friend who is wildly successful in their career, at the top of what's achievable in that field, and well within the top 1% income-wise. At one point, for various reasons, especially because of their spouse, they moved to a position with a different organization. To me it seemed like a great fit. This friend had entertained other moves, that never seemed right to me, but this one seemed right. In the end, though, it killed his productivity, and he stopped being able to do much of anything, just because differences in culture and fit at the two institutions. He got out of it and returned to where he started his career, and things became ok again, but I've often wondered what would have happened if he had started at the second place he worked at. I have a strong suspicion people would have attributed whatever happened to him to him, rather than his circumstances or fit, and I'm not sure he would have had a point of comparison to know enough that he would do better someplace else (after all, everyone thought the move was a kind of win-win-win for everyone involved, when it turned out to be the opposite).