THE WORLD OF DR. BAYESA WORK IN PROBABILITY · EST. 2026
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THE ARCHIVE/EPISODE 017
EPISODE 017 · THE CONFERENCE ROOM

The Whale

Diversified, on paper. An executive is proud of her 10,000 customers until Dr. Bayes asks how much revenue comes from the top 5%. The answer is 48%.

ConcentrationHeavy tailsRevenue risk
THE COMICTap any panel to open it at full size
Episode 017 of the Dr. Bayes comic, “The Whale”: An executive is proud of her 10,000 customers until Dr. Bayes asks how much revenue comes from the top 5%. The answer is 48%. The full dialogue is in the transcript below.
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A NOTE FOR CURIOUS MINDS

Behind the joke.

A customer count says little about risk when revenue is heavy-tailed. Here the top 1% of customers bring in 28% of revenue and the top 5% bring in 48%, while the bottom 75% contribute 22%. Losing a handful of large accounts would hurt far more than the headline count suggests, so concentration needs to be measured and managed, not assumed away.

SPEECH BUBBLES, IN WORDS

The transcript.

For readers who prefer dialogue without zooming in.

Read the dialogue ↘

Elena Reyes: Ten thousand customers! I'd say we're pretty well diversified!

Dr. Bayes: How much revenue comes from your top 5% of customers?

Elena Reyes: Forty-eight percent.

Dr. Bayes: Your distribution appears to have eaten several of the customers.