the jackpot age

The essay argues that a culture of chasing jackpots, driven by linear and exponential wealth preferences, is spreading through finance, work and everyday life, and that it damages median outcomes and social cohesion. It cites a coin-flip simulation in which almost all of 25,000 people flipping a thousand times end up near zero despite a positive expected value per flip. It names SBF and Su Zhu of Three Arrows Capital as examples of linear and exponential wealth preferences, both of whom lost ten billion dollars. The author, who says they have made a living trading crypto, proposes that a modern equivalent of religion is needed to offer dignity and purpose to people who might otherwise chase jackpots.