In 1993, psychologist Anders Ericsson challenged the concept of innate talent, asserting:
Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning.
In his bestselling book Outliers: The Story of Success, published in 2008, Macolm Gladwell popularized Ericssons’ research, asserting that talent is a myth and exceptional performance is merely the result of about 10 years of deliberate practice, and glibly stating, “Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.”
There is no question that years of deliberate practice or intense study are required to perform at the highest levels in sport or intellectual pursuits. We all recognize that ten thousand hours of immersion in a pursuit is a necessary prerequisite for reaching the highest echelon’s of achievement in that area of focus. However Gladwell’s assertion implies that ten thousand hours is a sufficient condition. In other words, we’re all intellectually equal, and differences in achievement can be entirely credited to hours of work. This idea was happily received by many who could now declare, “Albert Einstein was no smarter than I, he just worked harder.”
In 1958, science fiction writer, Theordore Sturgeon, responding to critics who asserted that 90% of all sci-fi books were of low quality, asserted that the same was true, not only for fiction, but for all forms of art. Later, this statement was generalized into “90% of everything is crap,” and was immortalized as Sturgeon’s law. In a recent interview, published in the Wall Street Journal, Marc Andreessen one of the founders of the World Wide Web, referring to Sturgeon’s law, said:
Ninety percent of music is crap. The same is true of paintings, writing, TV shows and movies. That is the nature of creative work. There are only a few people in each field that know what to do. The reason I’m so fascinated by this is the ethic of our times is egalitarianism. Everybody’s the same, everyone is equal. The conceit of the times, the ethos that if only you put the work in, you’ll get great results–Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hours nonsense … It’s not just effort. It’s not just accidental. There’s something else going on. In these domains, we have a very small number of people who know what to do. And we have a much larger number of people typically laboring under some set of delusions—generating crap. It is what it is. I wish there were more quality painters … or entrepreneurs.
As Schopenhauer famously observed, “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.” Those who founded companies in the high-tech industries know that intelligence and creativity are not evenly distributed across the population. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc. explained in an interview with Business Week on October 12, 2004, one of the secrets of his success in hiring employees.
I noticed that the dynamic range between what an average person could accomplish and what the best person could accomplish was 50 or 100 to 1. Given that, you’re well advised to go after the cream of the cream … A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.
Jeff Bezos echoed the comments of Gates and Jobs in emphasizing the importance of IQ as the most vital element sought in Amazon’s recruitment and hiring of their top people. Biographer Leibovich observed:
The philosophies Bezos applied at Amazon follow a principle he has long embraced: Intrinsic ability [IQ] rules, trumping acquired skills and accumulated experience.
In a 2014 interview, Elon Musk, when asked, “When you hire people, what skills do you want them to have?” responded, “What I’m really looking for is evidence of exceptional ability.” If we were to sample most of the top corporations today, including investment companies as well as hi-tech innovators and lower tech retailers, we would get similar responses.
As Charles Murray observed in his book, Human Accomplishment, the overwhelming number of world-changing discoveries, inventions, and creative works come from a remarkable few whom he designates as the “giants” in those domains, stating:
When you assemble the human résumé, only a few thousand people stand apart from the rest. Among them, the people who are indispensable to the story of human accomplishment number in the hundreds. Among those hundreds, a handful stand conspicuously above everyone else.
The essence of scientific inquiry is the ability to put aside what we would like to believe, and penetrate to the core of what is. Reality is difficult enough to grasp, without corrupting it with wishful thinking.
