I think the most likely cause of his success is not related to his talent, but his focus. When I was choosing a college, I wasn’t thinking about advisors. It ce

I think the most likely cause of his success is not related to his talent, but his focus. When I was choosing a college, I wasn’t thinking about advisors. It certainly never occurred to me to find the best guys in the field and try to get in under them. It just sounds too far fetched to be a real possibility. But it is a real possibility, of course, and the people that identify that and go for it have a remarkable outcome of accumulating advantage. It’s like compound interest. Go to the best school you can. Get under a top advisor in grad school. Publish in top journals. Work for major companies. At this point you’re surrounded by the best and have become the best. You have to know what you want early, and then optimize your ass off. I was late to the party, but the last couple years have been huge successes for me relative to previous parts of my life, and that started with saying to myself “start by applying to the very best and working down from there.”