Pareto's Principle

Vilfredo Pareto was born in Paris in 1848, an appropriate year for such a revolutionary thinker: Europe was awash in the idea of revolution after the French monarchy was overthrown, and social change was in the air.

Pareto grew up in Italy after his family returned to their ancestral home from Paris. Here, he became an engineer while showing incredible promise in math, but it took a few years for him to finally transition into economics, the field Pareto is most well-known for today.

It was wealth distribution that fascinated Pareto so much.

While poring over land ownership statistics, he was struck by a startling imbalance: a mere 20% of the population owned a staggering 80% of the land.

This wasn’t only the case in Italy, nor was it confined to real estate ownership. It seemed like this 80/20 relationship was everywhere one cared to look. And so was born the Pareto Principle, wherein 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

A multifaceted thinker, Pareto shuffled through variou…