The Formula

'A smart, readable account of the unexpected scientific principles that drive success' Financial Times 'It's rare that a book about success turns out to be such a page-turner, File The Formula away with Freakonomics or Outliers' GeekWire 'Fascinating' Bloomberg Businessweek 'A fun, fast, first-hand account of efforts to use big data to pull back the curtains on our collective dynamics. The Formula offers a rich tour of research on how relatively simple feedback forces channel our lives in surprising and counter-intuitive ways' Nature The groundbreaking international bestseller which reveals the indisputable scientific laws that turn your achievements into success and shows you how to use them to your own advantage. In The Formula, Albert-László Barabási, one of the world's leading experts on the science of networks, reveals the unspoken rules behind who truly gets ahead and why, and outlines the five laws that govern this phenomenon and how we can use them to our own advantage. Drawing on big data research that covers everyone from ace fighter pilot the Red Baron to graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, Miles Davis and his recording of Kind of Blue to Marcel Duchamp and Tiger Woods, Barabási shows why success can come at any time, as long as we are persistent, why in successful teams one person gets the lion's share of the credit, and why the last interviewee almost always gets the job. Unveiling the scientific principles that drive success, and how to leverage them, Barabási offers a new understanding of the very foundation of how people excel in today's society, and how to harness these principles for yourself.

Albert-László Barabási is the Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science at Northeastern University, where he directs the Center for Complex Network Research. He also holds appointments in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Central European University in Budapest. A native of Transylvania, Romania, he received his Masters in Theoretical Physics at the Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary and Ph.D. at Boston University. He is the author of Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do, Linked: The New Science of Networks, Network Science, and he is the co-editor of The Structure and Dynamics of Networks.

Introduction - Introduction: Success Isn't About You. It's About Us. Chapter - 1: The Red Baron and the Forgotten Ace Section - The First Law: Performance drives success, but when performance can't be measured, networks drive success. Chapter - 2: Grand Slams and College Diplomas Chapter - 3: The $2 Million Urinal Section - The Second Law: Performance is bounded, but success is unbounded. Chapter - 4: How Much Is a Bottle of Wine Worth? Chapter - 5: Superstars and Power Laws Section - The Third Law: Previous success x fitness = future success. Chapter - 6: Exploding Kittens and Sock Puppets Chapter - 7: The Ear of the Beholder Section - The Fourth Law: While team success requires diversity and balance, a single individual will receive credit for the group's achievements. Chapter - 8: Kind of Conventional, Kind of Innovative, Kind of Blue Chapter - 9: The Algorithm That Found the Overlooked Scientist Section - The Fifth Law: With persistence success can come at any time. Chapter - 10: Einstein's Error