Why I named this the Pareto Project

“Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.” -Vilfredo Pareto

I named my website after Vilfredo Pareto (1848 - 1923) - an Italian economist, sociologist and philosopher. My interest in Pareto originally stemmed from the probability distribution which bares his name: the Pareto Distribution. This distribution is often referred to by other names such as the Pareto principal or as the popular business rule-of thumb: “the 80/20 rule”.

From a business context, the amazing thing about the 80/20 rule is that it shows up so often - so often in fact that an entire industry exists to promote the idea that “80% or your business results come from 20% of your effort” or some such phrase.

But as it turns out, it isn’t just business settings that the Pareto distribution shows up - it seems to show up almost everywhere. It, along with the closely related probability distributions known as “power-law distributions”, shows up in business, financial markets, the structure of the internet, sociology, economics, politics, physics, geology, biology...

Over the years in virtually every topic that I found interesting - I ended up finding these probability distributions. And since this site is devoted to “topics I find interesting”, the name “Pareto Project” seemed appropriate. Plus, I just like the way it sounds.