Sam Bankman Fried and Elizabeth Holmes are just two of the seemingly cursed winners of Forbes 30 under 30. To be clear, they are very much the exceptions – analysis has shown that only 1% of winners run into legal issues – but it’s still interesting that fraud runs rife among the cream of the crop.
Cursed success
Awards aren’t always beneficial.
It’s one of the most successful video games of all time, but its cover players aren’t so lucky. Of the 22 players who have been selected to grace the cover of Madden games, 16 have had troubling or abruptly shortened seasons following their cover debut. It may be a curious coincidence, but it hasn’t stopped fans protesting against their favourite players appearing on the cover.
They signal a restaurant’s success, but often the start of its collapse. A UCL study of highly rated restaurants showed that those with stars were more likely to close down than those without. The publicity from the star means that guests become more demanding and businesses they deal with, like ingredient suppliers, use the opportunity to charge more.