Early Success Trap and Late Bloomer Advantage: A Dynamical Theory of Career Success

Early success is commonly interpreted as evidence of superior talent, while late bloomers are often regarded as less capable. In this paper, we present a unified phenomenological model of social success that demonstrates the opposite: early success can structurally undermine long- term career stability, whereas late bloomers may succeed precisely because of their initially unfavorable position. Using a dynamical success index, we derive explicit conditions under which early success leads to career collapse and late bloomers eventually dominate. The results provide a mathematical foundation for the Early Success Trap and the Late Bloomer Advantage, with implications for education systems, talent evaluation, and career design.