How strong is the correlation between fancy board and success

# How strong is the correlation between fancy board and success? # How strong is the correlation between fancy board and success People often tout the star-quality of a company’s board as an implicit proxy for their predicted success. “Look at our board of rockstars!” How predictive is the impressiveness of a company’s board? It’s certainly possible that a high quality board can help a company succeed - opening doors to customers, providing the prestige to punch above its weight in hiring, and providing valuable wisdom. People on the board might be impressive because their presence on other boards led to *those* company’s successes. Another possibility is that while an impressive board doesn’t *cause* a company’s success, it is predictive. In this case, the board members are good enough at pattern matching or there are enough other impressive things about the company that they are convinced to be on the board. This might suggest that there is a confounder that might lead to both the company’s success and an impressive board (like charismatic founders, a great product, etc.) However, it’s also possible that there isn’t even correlation and a series of cognitive biases lead us to associate fancy boards and success. You probably look at the boards of successful companies more than unsuccessful ones and those companies probably draw attention to their boards more if they’re fancy. Also our brains just like fancy people, so regardless of past information, we might continue to assume success.  [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/How+strong+is+the+correlation+between+fancy+board+and+success) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/How+strong+is+the+correlation+between+fancy+board+and+success)