  We study an infinite system of particles initially occupying a half-line
$y\leq 0$ and undergoing random walks on the entire line. The right-most
particle is called a leader. Surprisingly, every particle except the original
leader may never achieve the leadership throughout the evolution. For the
equidistant initial configuration, the $k^{\text{th}}$ particle attains the
leadership with probability $e^{-2} k^{-1} (\ln k)^{-1/2}$ when $k\gg 1$. This
provides a quantitative measure of the correlation between earlier misfortune
(represented by $k$) and eternal failure. We also show that the winner defined
as the first walker overtaking the initial leader has label $k\gg 1$ with
probability decaying as $\exp\!\left[-\tfrac{1}{2}(\ln k)^2\right]$.
