Success in creative careers depends little on product quality

Abstract: In the recent article Janosov, Battiston, & Sinatra report that they separated the inputs of talent and luck in creative careers. They build on the previous work of Sinatra et al which introduced the Q-model. Under the model the popularity of different elements of culture is a product of two factors: a random factor and a Qfactor, or talent. The latter is fixed for an individual but randomly distributed among different people. This way they explain how some individuals can consistently produce high-impact work. They extract the Q-factors for different scientists, writers, and movie makers from statistical data on popularity of their work. However, in their article they reluctantly state that there is little correlation between popularity and quality ratings of of books and movies (correlation coefficients 0.022 and 0.15). I analyzed the data of the original Q-factor article and obtained a correlation between the citation-based Q-factor and Nobel Prize winning of merely 0.19. I also briefly review few other experiments that found a meager, sometimes even negative, correlation between popularity and quality of cultural products. I conclude that, if there is an ability associated with a high Q-factor it should be more of a marketing ability than an ability to produce a higher quality product. Janosov,