Successful Careers Is the Most Overrated Idea in Academia

R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness · Apr 11, 2026 · 12m

Success is so strongly sold to you in academia.

It’s part of the culture.

Part of the myth.

We’re told there is one path:

success → happiness → utility → more success.

And business schools may be the purest version of this belief.

Everything becomes about success.

Publications.

P-values below 0.05.

Getting it “through.”

As if one number can explain a complex world.

But the older I get, the more this feels wrong.

Success often signals luck, not mastery.

Complex systems don’t resolve into single outcomes.

We simplify because we need stories, not because the stories are true.

Pick five people at…