The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks
“TWiST Book Club pick, chosen by Jason.”
Why it is worth your time
The Hot Hand is Ben Cohen's 2020 book on streaks. Cohen covers sports for the Wall Street Journal. He starts with the 1985 paper by Thomas Gilovich, Robert Vallone and Amos Tversky that found no evidence of a hot hand in basketball, follows the researchers who later found a flaw in that analysis, and uses Stephen Curry as the running case. He then takes the idea outside sport, to a lost Van Gogh, the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, farming and investing. Jason chose it as his TWiST book club pick for October 2020. The subject touches angel investing directly: whether a run of good picks is skill or noise is a question he gets asked. It suits readers who like Michael Lewis-style science writing. The caveat is that the science is unsettled: Miller and Sanjurjo's 2018 Econometrica paper challenged the 1985 study that called the hot hand a fallacy, and the argument continues.
