The Mathematical Reason Most People Never “Make It”

The Mathematical Reason Most People Never “Make It” is an article that details why it is necessary to create, even when it seems that the payoff is lower than it should be.

Price’s Law states that the square root of the number of people in a domain does 50% of the work.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

  • In a company with 100 employees, 10 people produce half the output
  • In a field with 10,000 scientists, 100 produce half the meaningful research
  • On a team of 25, 5 people carry the entire operation

…The formula is simple: √n = your high performers, where n is the total population.

Oh, and it wasn’t exclusive to research papers—this pattern showed up everywhere he looked.

This applies to many different things.  This article was a good read.

Document no. z260525wa, last updated 25 May, 2026

Literature Notes | May 25th, 2026