Dr Chengwei Liu on Luck & Serendipity

Have you ever wondered how much of your success is down to luck? What if the world is far less fair and predictable than we’d like to think?

On this episode, I explore the complex and fascinating role of luck in our lives and decisions with Dr. Chengwei Liu, Associate Professor of Strategy and Behavioural Science at Imperial College London. Chengwei shares how his research challenges our assumptions about skill, effort, and fairness – and why the outcomes we see are often far more random than we’d like to believe.

We discuss why many successful strategies and best practices are built on shaky ground, and how our tendency to downplay luck creates illusions of control and reinforces unfair systems. Chengwei explains how beliefs in fairness – like the ‘just world’ hypothesis – shape everything from business cultures to political systems, and how luck and misperceptions of it can create cycles of privilege or disadvantage.

Chengwei also shares practical insights on how to become a smart contrarian: someone who can harness the power of randomness and serendipity while avoiding the pitfalls of bias and overconfidence. From the dangers of blindly following the ‘successful’ to the need to look inward and embrace uniqueness, it’s a thought-provoking conversation that will change the way you think about risk, decision-making, and what it really means to get ahead.

Guest Biography
Dr. Chengwei Liu is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Behavioural Science at Imperial College London. He describes himself as someone fascinated by how luck, randomness, and human biases shape success and failure – both in business and in broader society.

Chengwei’s work challenges mainstream management thinking and explores how much of what we attribute to skill is actually the result of random factors.

His book, Luck: A Key Idea for Business and Society, examines these dynamics and how we can learn to navigate them.

Beyond his academic roles, Chengwei has also worked as a management consultant, drawing on his experience in both research and practice to uncover how to harness luck and uncertainty.

AI-Generated Timestamped Summary
[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:00] Chengwei explains his research focus on randomness and variance in firm performance

[00:04:00] The overlooked 50% of variance in outcomes: luck and randomness

[00:06:00] Defining luck as what lies beyond our control and foresight

[00:08:00] The conflict between fairness beliefs and the reality of luck

[00:10:00] Luck’s societal implications: why fairness perceptions differ across countries

[00:11:00] Skill versus luck – how we confuse the two in our narratives

[00:13:00] Why successful people over-attribute their success to skill

[00:15:00] Managers vs entrepreneurs: how they differ in acknowledging luck

[00:17:00] The challenges of researching an elusive concept like luck

[00:18:00] Using mathematical models to understand Black Swan events

[00:20:00] Why successful predictions of Black Swan events don’t indicate forecasting skill

[00:23:00] The problem with best practices from ‘successful’ firms

[00:26:00] Selection bias in business books and the danger of survivor bias

[00:29:00] The ‘too good to be true’ heuristic as a guide

[00:31:00] Contrarian thinking as a survival strategy for uncertainty

[00:33:00] The replication crisis and the problem with social science predictability

[00:35:00] Human curiosity: the power of moderate surprises

[00:37:00] The difference between luck and serendipity

[00:39:00] How to encourage serendipity in our lives

[00:41:00] Embracing uniqueness and avoiding conformity

[00:44:00] Lessons for the age of AI and human creativity

[00:46:00] The dangers of ignoring randomness: when biases become destructive

[00:48:00] Exploiting others’ biases for strategic advantage

[00:50:00] Why ‘smart contrarian’ thinking is more important than ever

[00:53:00] Testing contrarian ideas like a scientist

[00:56:00] The limits of trial and error: learning from mistakes

[00:58:00] Chengwei’s ongoing research: minority decision-making in venture capital

[01:00:00] How passion and variance link to VC investment strategies

[01:02:00] Wrapping up with reflections on luck, curiosity, and human creativity

LinksDr. Chengwei Liu’s book, Luck: A Key Idea for Business and Society: https://www.routledge.com/Luck-A-Key-Idea-for-Business-and-Society/Liu/p/book/9781138094260?

Chengwei Liu’s Imperial College faculty webpage: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/c.liu