About a hundred years ago, a linguist named George Zipf decided to count all the words in a bunch of books.
He wasn’t looking for meaning—just frequency. What showed up the most?
No surprise: the, of, and. But here’s where it gets interesting:
- The #1 word showed up 2x more than #2
- 3x more than #3
- 4x more than #4
- The top 135 words made up half of everything written
That curve—where a few things dominate and most barely register—shows up everywhere.
Look at books: In 2022, the #1 best-selling book in the U.S. sold over 2 million copies. The #10 book sold under 300,000. Same industry, same stores, same shelves—7x less reach.
Look at YouTube: MrBeast’s top video has 600 million+ views. The vast majority of videos on the platform never crack 10,000. Same algorithm. Same tools. Same upload button.
Look at Spotify: Out of over 100 million tracks, the top 1% get 90% of the plays. Not because they’re necessarily better—but because they were better timed, better distributed, better positioned to benefit from attention compounding on itself.
Look at apps: The Apple App Store has nearly 2 million apps. In any given year, less than 0.1% generate the vast majority of revenue. Many are downloaded once—or not at all.
Look at Amazon: 80% of book sales come from the top 5% of titles. For self-published authors, it’s even more dramatic—most never sell more than 100 copies. And that’s total, not per year.
This is the Power Law in action.
Not everything performs equally. Not every effort is rewarded evenly.
It’s not a straight line. It’s a steep curve.
A few “hits” will always dominate. One podcast. One post. One product.
They rise fast, take the spotlight, and pull the bulk of attention with them.
Everything else trails off into the long tail.
But here’s the catch: those hits are almost always unexpected.
They can’t be planned. They’re rarely predicted.
And assuming you’ll be the exception is a dangerous bet.
So if you’re building, don’t just chase the top of the curve.
Build for the tail.
That’s where most of us live.
And it’s not a failure. It’s a strategy.
Because the long tail is where depth matters more than reach.
It’s where niche beats broad.
Where early adopters, subcultures, and small circles of true fans can power real careers.
If you’re not going to be for everyone—be exactly what someone’s looking for.
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