Albert-László Barabási: The real relationship between your age and your chance of success
Albert-László Barabási: La verdadera relación entre la edad y las oportunidades de éxito
A pioneer in network science, Albert-László Barabási uncovers the hidden order behind complex systems. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
a very special day for me,
porque es mi cumpleaños.
for joining the party.
there's someone there to spoil it. Right?
siempre alguien la arruina, ¿verdad?
another physicist along to do so.
para que se encargara de eso.
also Albert -- and he's the one who said
también Albert, y él fue quien dijo
his great contributions to science
grandes contribuciones a la ciencia
he is telling me, and us,
lo que me dice a mí y a todos,
no soy muy competente.
of luck within my career.
tuve mi dosis de suerte.
very interested in networks,
un gran interés por las redes,
to publish a few key papers
logramos publicar algunos artículos
of scale-free networks
de redes de libre escala,
that we call network science today.
que ahora llamamos ciencia de redes.
you can get a PhD now in network science
se puede estudiar un doctorado en eso
o en cualquier parte del mundo.
first as a sabbatical,
in another type of network:
and the metabolites link to each other
y los metabolitos se conectan
to a major explosion within medicine,
que me adentrara en la medicina,
Division at Harvard,
de Medicina de Red en Harvard,
who are using this perspective
que usan esta perspectiva
y desarrollar nuevas curas.
this idea of networks
esta idea de las redes
en un área distinta
by the networks we're part of --
determinaban nuestro éxito.
they can pull us back.
y hacer retroceder.
the knowledge and big data and expertise
el conocimiento, los datos y experiencia
cómo suceden estas cosas.
how these things happen.
of galleries in museums
de galerías en museos
that we mapped out last year,
que hicimos el año pasado,
the success of an artist
de un artista con gran precisión
that he or she had in their career.
cinco exhibiciones de su carrera.
is not only about networks;
no solo está en las redes.
other dimensions to that.
we need for success, obviously,
necesitamos para tener éxito
entre desempeño y éxito.
between performance and success.
what kind of paintings you paint,
el tipo de pinturas que hacemos,
notices from what you did,
reconoce que hicimos,
and how does it reward you for it?
y cómo nos retribuye?
but your success is about all of us.
pero nuestro éxito concierne a todos.
important shift for us,
as being a collective measure
como una medida colectiva,
there are multiple data points about that.
que conciernen a la comunidad.
we exercise, we practice,
hacemos ejercicio y practicamos
conduce al éxito.
that performance leads to success.
started to explore,
are very, very different animals
y el éxito no tienen nada en común
the mathematics of the problem.
the fastest man on earth, Usain Bolt.
del mundo, Usain Bolt.
the competitions that he enters.
en las que participa.
porque tenemos un cronómetro
because we have a chronometer
is that when he wins,
outrunning his competition.
than the one who loses the race.
más rápido que el que pierde.
one percent faster than the second one,
1 % más rápido que el segundo,
10 times faster than I do --
más rápido que yo.
trust me on that.
to measure performance,
no huge variations in human performance.
no tiene grandes variaciones.
to measure the differences.
para medir las diferencias.
see the good from the best ones,
lo bueno de los mejores,
are very hard to distinguish.
identificar a los mejores.
is that most of us work in areas
de nosotros trabajamos en áreas
to gauge our performance.
para medir nuestro desempeño.
when it comes to our performance.
no hay grandes diferencias entre nosotros.
a different topic, like books.
how many people read your work.
es con el número de personas que los leen.
came out in 2009,
Who is the competition?
quién era la competencia.
"El símbolo perdido"
casi no hay diferencia
there's hardly any difference
works a little harder,
se esforzaba un poco más,
who ended up at the top.
lo hizo casi por accidente.
I'm a data person, right?
después de todo, son datos.
the sales for Nicholas Sparks.
that opening weekend,
ese fin de semana de estreno
más de 100 000 copias,
a hundred thousand copies,
los best-seller de The New York Times
of the "New York Times" best-seller list
what he needed to be number one.
de lo necesario para ser el número uno.
who sold 1.2 million copies that weekend.
1,2 millones de copias ese fin de semana.
is because it shows that, really,
porque nos muestra que, en realidad,
slightly more than the second best
solo por un poco,
we earn it through our performance.
con nuestro desempeño.
performance, what we do, is bounded,
o lo que hacemos, tiene sus límites,
collective, is unbounded,
no los tiene.
huge differences in success
estas grandes diferencias en el éxito
differences in performance?
en el desempeño son tan mínimas.
that I devoted to that very question.
que se enfoca en esa cuestión.
to go over all of that,
para hablar de todo
to the question of,
when should that appear?
and ask ourselves:
que arruina las fiestas.
this ridiculous statement,
hizo esa ridícula declaración
you could actually be creative?
podemos ser creativos?
and he saw all these fabulous physicists
y vio a grandes físicos
and modern physics,
y la física moderna
and early 30s when they did so.
a whole field of genius research
we admire from the past
a quienes admiramos del pasado
they made their biggest contribution,
hicieron su mayor contribución,
whether that's science,
in their 20s, 30s, early 40s at most.
a los 20, los 30 o máximo los 40.
with this genius research.
the impression to us
se relaciona con la juventud.
and doesn't look at ordinary scientists
y no a científicos comunes.
vanishes as we age?
se desvanece al envejecer.
to actually have references.
para que hayan referencias.
scientist like myself,
that I've published
que he publicado,
I was still in Romania when I did so,
aún estaba en Rumania cuando lo hice,
the impact of the paper,
pueden ver su impacto
have been written that cited that work.
han citado este trabajo.
tiene tres diferentes etapas.
has roughly three different stages.
en los que trabajaba mucho
where I had to work a lot
mi trabajo, ¿cierto?
about what I do, right?
me dedicaba a la ciencia de materiales
for myself networks
paper to the other one.
That was that stage of my career.
Fue esa etapa de mi carrera.
what happens right now?
hasn't been enough time passed yet
no ha pasado suficiente tiempo
those papers will get;
y Genius Research tienen razón
the genius research, is right,
how does this really happen,
cómo es que esto sucede,
the selection bias,
of every single scientist
la carrera de cada científico
what was their personal best,
de todos los científicos.
or they never did,
o tal vez no lo hicieron
even their personal best.
incluso el mejor de ellos.
on the top of that career,
their biggest discovery?
su mayor descubrimiento?
that you make your biggest discovery,
de hacer su mayor descubrimiento.
o diez años de carrera.
or 10 years into your career?
edad académica.
what we call "academic age."
when you publish your first papers.
con las primeras publicaciones.
your highest-impact paper.
the genius research is right.
está en lo correcto.
their highest-impact paper
suelen publicar su mejor artículo
de su carrera profesional,
I'm exactly 30 years into my career,
llevo 30 años de carrera profesional,
that would have a higher impact
un artículo que tenga un mayor impacto
according to this data.
de acuerdo con esta información.
who makes random contribution to science?
aleatoriamente a la ciencia?
of the scientist?
in year one, 10 or 20 in your career,
en su primer, décimo o veinteavo año
of having the impact
de que este tenga éxito
there's only one explanation for that,
solo hay una explicación para ello.
de los científicos,
every project we do,
cada proyecto que hagamos
of being our personal best.
de ser nuestro mejor trabajo.
a lottery ticket.
es como un boleto de lotería.
compra la mayoría de sus boletos
most of their lottery tickets
their productivity decreases.
any more lottery tickets.
they would not be creative.
the conclusion is very simple:
la conclusión es muy simple.
en cualquier momento.
or very last paper of your career.
o con el último artículo de su carrera.
in the space of the projects.
en el espacio de proyectos.
who got the Nobel Prize in Physics
quien obtuvo el Premio Nobel en Física
in his career as a graduate student.
estando en el último año de su carrera.
by Yale University.
to Virginia Commonwealth University,
a la universidad de Commonwealth Virginia,
that he published a paper
que publicó un artículo
the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
ganó el Premio Nobel de Química.
well, science is special,
la ciencia es algo especial,
where we need to be creative?
en las que se debe ser creativo.
typical example: entrepreneurship.
otro ejemplo: el emprendimiento.
the TechCrunch Awards and other awards,
como los premios TechCrunch, entre otros,
is late 20s, very early 30s.
finales de los 20 y principios de los 30.
some of the biggest VC firms --
de algunas de las más grandes empresas,
that youth equals success.
que la juventud se relaciona con el éxito.
about forming a company --
de crear compañías.
como con la productividad.
trying, trying, trying --
of these individuals actually put out
looked at exactly that question.
se fijaron en esa pregunta.
those in the 20s and 30s
quienes tienen entre 20 y 30 años
form lots of companies,
what you see in this particular plot,
lo que se ve en este caso en particular,
you will actually hit the stock market
más probabilidades tienes de lograrlo
that if you are in the 50s,
con 50 años de edad,
to actually have a successful exit
de formar un camino exitoso,
that we see, actually?
¿qué es lo que vemos en realidad?
at the end of the day,
and succeed over and over.
una y otra vez.
regreso al laboratorio.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Albert-László Barabási - Network scientistA pioneer in network science, Albert-László Barabási uncovers the hidden order behind complex systems.
Why you should listen
Albert-László Barabási is fascinated by a wide range of topics, from the structure of the brain and treating diseases with network medicine to the emergence of success in art and how science really works. His work uses the quantitative tools of network science, a research field that he pioneered, and led to the discovery of scale-free networks, helping explain the emergence of many natural, technological and social networks.
Barabási is the Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science at Northeastern University and holds an appointment in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He splits his time with Budapest, where he runs a European Research Council project at Central European University. A Hungarian born native of Transylvania, Romania, he received his masters in theoretical physics at the Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary and his PhD three years later at Boston University.
Barabási’s latest book is The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success. He is also the author of Network Science, Linked and Bursts. He co-edited Network Medicine and The Structure and Dynamics of Networks. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.
Albert-László Barabási | Speaker | TED.com