11 July, 2007

Why Amit Agarwal makes more money than Amit Varma

Amit Agarwal is an exceptional tech blogger, besides being a wonderful guy, but that alone surely cannot explain why he makes thousands of dollars every month through Google Adsense while I earn in the mere hundreds. Well, I have found out the secret, and it has nothing to do with our abilities. Instead, it’s all because of our last names.

Richard Wiseman of the Telegraph writes:

A few weeks ago, I invited Telegraph readers to take part in a unique experiment to explore whether your surname influences your life. There was a massive response, with 15,000 readers participating online.

The results yielded a fascinating insight into a hitherto hidden aspect of the human psyche. I wanted to know if people who had a surname that began with a letter near the start of the alphabet were more successful in life than those with names towards the end. In short, are the Abbots and Adams of the world likely to do better than the Youngs and the Yorks?

No prizes for guessing what Wiseman found. As I’d mentioned last year, a study had once found that last names did matter in the field of economics, but Wiseman now finds that it matters outside academics as well. And the habit of listing names in alphabetical order has everything to do with it.

[W]hether it is on a school register, at a job interview, or in the exam hall, people with surnames towards the start of the alphabet are used to being first.

Given that we often associate the top of a list with winners and the bottom with losers, could all of these small experiences add up and make a long-term impact on someone’s life?

Indeed, I’ve recently joined Facebook, and whenever I browse the friends list of a friend, I feel almost hurt to find myself near the bottom. Surely I’m closer to them than that? At this rate, I’ll end up resenting the world and having no friends left.

As for that Amit Agarwal chappie, pah! I demand that the government taxes away 90% of his income and redistributes it to bloggers with last names like, um, mine.

And don’t get me started on the Bushes, Blairs, and Bin Ladens of the world.

(Link via email from Ullas Marar.)