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Writer's pictureThirteen

The Ovarian Lottery

A friend asked, "What if Sachin Tendulkar was born in a non-cricket playing nation to say somewhere in Europe?" Before I could say anything, he himself said, "He would have been a world-class soccer player". I told him, forget Europe if Sachin Tendulkar was born just 5 KM away from Bandra (Mumbai) somewhere in Worli-Koliwada (Mumbai) he would have become a fisherman.

...the genie says to them, “One of you is going to be born in the United States, and one of you is going to be born in Bangladesh. And if you wind up in Bangladesh, you will pay no taxes...

Our friend Warren Buffett has a theory called the ‘Ovarian Lottery’ which gives a good framework of how the location of your birthplace has to do with what you become: “I’ve had it so good in this world, you know. The odds were fifty-to-one against me being born in the United States in 1930. I won the lottery the day I emerged from the womb by being in the United States instead of in some other country where my chances would have been way different. Imagine there are two identical twins in the womb, both equally bright and energetic. And the genie says to them, “One of you is going to be born in the United States, and one of you is going to be born in Bangladesh. And if you wind up in Bangladesh, you will pay no taxes. What percentage of your income would you bid to be the one that is born in the United States?” It says something about the fact that society has something to do with your fate and not just your innate qualities. The people who say, “I did it all myself,” and think of themselves as Horatio Alger — believe me, they’d bid more to be in the United States than in Bangladesh. That’s the Ovarian Lottery”


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Image Cover for the post: Business Insider

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