The Lindy Effect is “a theorised phenomenon by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable thing, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to its current age.”
Basically, the longer something has survived, it’s also likely to have a longer life expectancy.
Plato. Shakespeare. The Beatles. We can reasonably expect the works of these masters to last well into the future. But in this case, we’d expect Plato to survive a lot longer than the Beatles, and for Shakespeare to fall somewhere in between.
For me, the Lindy effect is super useful when deciding what to read next. To “read a Lindy book” is to read texts that have stood the test of time. Compare that to books on the current New York Times bestseller list, like Matthew McConaughey’s memoir ‘Greenlights’. Sure, McConaughey is a big star now, but his book’s prominence and relevance will eventually wane, and it’ll one day just be noise.
Focusing our limited time and energy on Lindy books, will give us the maximum return on investment in the long run.