11 ms·

Nice article. Two sentences jumped out at me. First: “There are very few who are as inherently bright as Natalie is, who have as much intellectual horsepower

by edw519 16y ago

Nice article. Two sentences jumped out at me. First: “There are very few who are as inherently bright as Natalie is, who have as much intellectual horsepower, who work as hard as she did. She didn’t take a single thing for granted.” then: If anything, stories like Ms. Portman’s show that great success, like DNA, is constructed of a few basic building blocks: tenacity, focus, and the old Woody Allen line about just showing up. No question about the importance of things like hard work, tenacity, focus, not taking anything for granted, and just showing up. We all have to do these things. The phrase that really got me thinking was "intellectual horsepower". What is that? And how important is that? I used to be awfully hasty in judging others, "She is really smart," or "He is so stupid". Then I learned alot from my first mentor. He taught that there often isn't much difference between someone who appears smart and someone who doesn't. Perhaps no one spent enough time with them. Maybe they have other challenges, like family, health, or circumstances. Maybe they're just a fish out of water, spending too much time on things that don't interest him. Or maybe they appear dumb because they actually believe that they are. They've been told so many times that they now believe it. At first, he sounded like some hippie idealist. But the more we worked together, the more his teachings manifested themselves in the people we worked with. People who appeared dumb blossomed under different circumstances all the time. The were smart deep down inside where no one ever explored. (These people were mostly hourly workers who knew way more than their bosses about running the business.) To this day, when I see phrases like, "intellectual horsepower", I cringe. We "smarties" aren't that much smarter than most other people, if we are at all. And just to stay humble, remember: we're all just one head injury from blissful ignorance.

roel_v 16y ago
Well, yes, intelligence needs to be trained, shaped, refined. But are you saying that there is no difference between humans when it comes to their maximum potential? I think everybody has an 'intelligence ceiling', and that ceiling can only be asymptotically approaches by study, hard work, circumstances etc. But that doesn't take away from the (imo) fact that there is a ceiling and that some people, no matter what they do, will never achieve the level some others do.
- danssig 16y ago
  I think the issue here is that you're saying "if person A is good at math person B may never be able to get as good at math". This I would agree with, but I think person B might be able to get better in some area than person A ever could. Equal in that sense, not identical.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    Not necessarily. I don't see a reason why person B would have to have something he's better at than A, except maybe statistical - there are millions of things a person can be good at, so the chances he's worse than the other in all things are very small. But then still, it's entirely possible that person A is better at many more things than person B. So 'equal' as in 'A and B are the best in an equal amount of things', I don't see any reason why it would be so.
jhamburger 16y ago
To this day, when I see phrases like, "intellectual horsepower", I cringe. We "smarties" aren't that much smarter than most other people, if we are at all. I don't think this is true at all. People who are average intelligence or below can be very successful but have no chance of succeeding in high level intellectual pursuits. People who are smart don't understand this, because to them learning anything is just a matter of effort. I think there is truth in what you are saying, because at a certain level of intelligence, hard work and attitude become more of a bottleneck than ability. This is supported by facts as well, studies have found that success increases by IQ score, but levels off or drops at a certain point where brainpower is more of a handicap to mental health than a benefit.
- TheSOB88 16y ago
  What if the reason people are 'smart' is because of the way their brain has organized itself over the years in response to learning so much? Then it isn't that dumb people are dumb, just behind.
  - jhamburger 16y ago
    That isn't reality. The genetic factors of intelligence are well documented. I could have played basketball six hours a day, every day for the last 25 years, and I'd be really really good. But I wouldn't be as good as Lebron James was when he was 12 years old.
    - btrask 16y ago
      You'd probably be better than most other basketball players. If you want to be the best in the world, it's true that factors outside of your control come into play. If you can "settle" for being in the top 10, top 100, or top 1000, instead of #1, you probably don't need much besides a lot of well-directed effort. In my experience.
      - lwat 16y ago
        Well if he's 5'9 he's not gonna make even the top 1000.
richcollins 16y ago
I thought that too until I moved to San Francisco and started meeting people that consistently see things that I miss. It wasn't that they had more domain knowledge or worked harder, it was that they were just better at seeing remotely connected things.
- abstractbill 16y ago
  That doesn't mean intelligence isn't malleable - San Francisco might just be a great environment for helping people see those connections more and more.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  That doesn't necessarily mean that they're innately smarter than you. When I first moved out to Silicon Valley and started working at Google, I met lots of people that consistently saw things that I missed. Even ones who didn't have as much experience as I did, at least in terms of year-as-a-computer-programmer. Now that I've been here a couple years, I've found that I'm consistently seeing things that other people are missing. Even, in some cases, the same people that consistently saw things I missed when I joined. It hasn't been because my innate intelligence has gone up. (In fact, as measured by my performance against the Starcraft: Brood War AI, my reaction time and ability to think quickly seems to be going consistently down since high school.) Rather, I've accumulated lots more domain knowledge. And it's tacit domain knowledge, little subconscious bits that are floating around the Valley culture but that people aren't aware of on a conscious level. If you don't know to look for such domain knowledge, it seems like the person is just massively smarter than you. And if you have that domain knowledge, you usually aren't aware that you have it, and so it seems like you're massively smarter than everyone else. But if you actually look closely at the leaps of logic that intelligent people make, and then trace those solutions back to the knowledge that enables them, you can almost always find some particular fact hidden away in the back of somebody's brain that accounts for it.
  - mryall 16y ago
    > Rather, I've accumulated lots more domain knowledge. ... And if you have that domain knowledge, ... it seems like you're massively smarter than everyone else. It's interesting many traditional software companies seem to promote the idea of "subject matter experts" (SMEs) as a key part of their software development process. Although I think the concept of SMEs is somewhat flawed, the idea that domain knowledge is vitally important becomes more clear to me the longer I spend working in a particular area. You can't be an effective developer in any industry unless you work on building up your domain expertise.
kmfrk 16y ago
I'd probably describe her success as "realized potential". She was gifted with some things congenitally (I mean just look at her), and she seems to have had some very supportive parents.
tastybites 16y ago
I would also add - sometimes a smart person just doesn't give a damn about impressing others. When I deliberately dis-engage in uninteresting conversations with "smart people" I can see them judging me immediately. Sometimes I just don't want to faux-argue over inconsequential bullshit. The older you get the better you get at letting your ego go in these kinds of meaningless contests.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  > When I deliberately dis-engage in uninteresting conversations with "smart people" I can see them judging me immediately. Agreed. And this is the perspective I have for a lot of the discussion threads here on HN. I love HN. But honestly, much of the so-called discussion here is picking at nits and stamp collecting. Even when you "win" you lose because you've wasted the time and effort that could have been better spent in the real world, or doing something to improve your financial or health situation. Not saying all discussion is bad, but one should pick and choose and get the most bang for your buck.
Jayasimhan 16y ago
> ..there often isn't much difference between someone who appears smart and someone who doesn't... Maybe they're just a fish out of water, spending too much time on things that don't interest him. Amen!
- deadmansshoes 16y ago
  "Maybe they're just a fish out of water, spending too much time on things that don't interest him." Doesn't sound too smart..
mynameishere 16y ago
You're right about the head injury. That's the only thing that can make any two people on earth intellectual equals.
runT1ME 16y ago
I guess I don't understand your need to have the phrase 'intellectual horsepower' or even 'bright' or 'smart' tied to someone's genetic makeup and potential. If I see a really big guy in the gym lifting a ton of weight, we can agree he's strong. That doesn't make a judgement on his work ethic vs. his genetics, and it doesn't imply that people who aren't as strong don't have every bit of potential to get to where he is. It's simply an observation on the facts of reality the way they are now. Now, I happen to be in the camp that believes you can make yourself smarter, so passing judgement on someone's intellectual horsepower in no way is me critiquing their potential.
silverbax88 16y ago
We are all simply products of intelligence + environment. I am however, more to the reverse of your experience. I used to believe that almost everyone could be amazing and brilliant if just given the opportunity and another set of circumstances. While I know that to be true in some cases, I also have learned over the years that many people just aren't bright enough to get advanced concepts and never will.
trunnell 16y ago
Intelligence is real but very difficult to quantify. The last time I was familiar with the literature (~10 years ago), intelligence was best defined as having many dimensions. It's a collection of weakly related gifts. Spatial reasoning, for example, is a different kind of intelligence than musical ability. Perhaps someone more up to date on the science can chime in. In any case, attempts to squash all those dimensions into a single numerical scale (like an IQ) hide a lot of information and can be very misleading.
- jacques_chester 16y ago
  IQ is the KSLOC of the psychometrics world.
- vacri 16y ago
  Way back when I was studying intelligence there were a number of specialties, but there were three broad groups that these specialties seemed to cohere under: 1) Algorithmic intelligence: the layman's usual picture of intellegence around working with concepts, figures, space, so on and so forth 2) Verbal intelligence: working with language and expression, vocabulary, etc 3) Social intelligence: being able to read people and social situations This was the state of play ~15 years ago and things may have restructured, but it points out that acuity can be in places other than the usual geeky fare. The sales guy that can sell you something you don't want and make you feel good about it is able to read your cues and formulate responses to counter 'incorrect' behaviour.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Intelligence may or may not have multiple facets, but the "multiple intelligences" fad proposed by Howard Gardner was basically shown to be bunk, devoid of any real scientific evidence.
brm 16y ago
I read this: “There are very few who are as inherently bright as Natalie is, who have as much intellectual horsepower, who work as hard as she did. She didn’t take a single thing for granted.” As: Few people who have the same level of intelligence she does, work as hard as she did. As I understood it, the professor was saying that she outworked her peers, not that she was the smartest of the group but that her work ethic made her exceptional in an already smart group

by edw519 16y ago

roel_v 16y ago

Well, yes, intelligence needs to be trained, shaped, refined. But are you saying that there is no difference between humans when it comes to their maximum potential? I think everybody has an 'intelligence ceiling', and that ceiling can only be asymptotically approaches by study, hard work, circumstances etc. But that doesn't take away from the (imo) fact that there is a ceiling and that some people, no matter what they do, will never achieve the level some others do.

danssig 16y ago
I think the issue here is that you're saying "if person A is good at math person B may never be able to get as good at math". This I would agree with, but I think person B might be able to get better in some area than person A ever could. Equal in that sense, not identical.
- roel_v 16y ago
  Not necessarily. I don't see a reason why person B would have to have something he's better at than A, except maybe statistical - there are millions of things a person can be good at, so the chances he's worse than the other in all things are very small. But then still, it's entirely possible that person A is better at many more things than person B. So 'equal' as in 'A and B are the best in an equal amount of things', I don't see any reason why it would be so.

jhamburger 16y ago

To this day, when I see phrases like, "intellectual horsepower", I cringe. We "smarties" aren't that much smarter than most other people, if we are at all. I don't think this is true at all. People who are average intelligence or below can be very successful but have no chance of succeeding in high level intellectual pursuits. People who are smart don't understand this, because to them learning anything is just a matter of effort. I think there is truth in what you are saying, because at a certain level of intelligence, hard work and attitude become more of a bottleneck than ability. This is supported by facts as well, studies have found that success increases by IQ score, but levels off or drops at a certain point where brainpower is more of a handicap to mental health than a benefit.

TheSOB88 16y ago
What if the reason people are 'smart' is because of the way their brain has organized itself over the years in response to learning so much? Then it isn't that dumb people are dumb, just behind.
- jhamburger 16y ago
  That isn't reality. The genetic factors of intelligence are well documented. I could have played basketball six hours a day, every day for the last 25 years, and I'd be really really good. But I wouldn't be as good as Lebron James was when he was 12 years old.
  - btrask 16y ago
    You'd probably be better than most other basketball players. If you want to be the best in the world, it's true that factors outside of your control come into play. If you can "settle" for being in the top 10, top 100, or top 1000, instead of #1, you probably don't need much besides a lot of well-directed effort. In my experience.
    - lwat 16y ago
      Well if he's 5'9 he's not gonna make even the top 1000.

richcollins 16y ago

I thought that too until I moved to San Francisco and started meeting people that consistently see things that I miss. It wasn't that they had more domain knowledge or worked harder, it was that they were just better at seeing remotely connected things.

abstractbill 16y ago
That doesn't mean intelligence isn't malleable - San Francisco might just be a great environment for helping people see those connections more and more.
nostrademons 16y ago
That doesn't necessarily mean that they're innately smarter than you. When I first moved out to Silicon Valley and started working at Google, I met lots of people that consistently saw things that I missed. Even ones who didn't have as much experience as I did, at least in terms of year-as-a-computer-programmer. Now that I've been here a couple years, I've found that I'm consistently seeing things that other people are missing. Even, in some cases, the same people that consistently saw things I missed when I joined. It hasn't been because my innate intelligence has gone up. (In fact, as measured by my performance against the Starcraft: Brood War AI, my reaction time and ability to think quickly seems to be going consistently down since high school.) Rather, I've accumulated lots more domain knowledge. And it's tacit domain knowledge, little subconscious bits that are floating around the Valley culture but that people aren't aware of on a conscious level. If you don't know to look for such domain knowledge, it seems like the person is just massively smarter than you. And if you have that domain knowledge, you usually aren't aware that you have it, and so it seems like you're massively smarter than everyone else. But if you actually look closely at the leaps of logic that intelligent people make, and then trace those solutions back to the knowledge that enables them, you can almost always find some particular fact hidden away in the back of somebody's brain that accounts for it.
- mryall 16y ago
  > Rather, I've accumulated lots more domain knowledge. ... And if you have that domain knowledge, ... it seems like you're massively smarter than everyone else. It's interesting many traditional software companies seem to promote the idea of "subject matter experts" (SMEs) as a key part of their software development process. Although I think the concept of SMEs is somewhat flawed, the idea that domain knowledge is vitally important becomes more clear to me the longer I spend working in a particular area. You can't be an effective developer in any industry unless you work on building up your domain expertise.

kmfrk 16y ago

I'd probably describe her success as "realized potential". She was gifted with some things congenitally (I mean just look at her), and she seems to have had some very supportive parents.

tastybites 16y ago

I would also add - sometimes a smart person just doesn't give a damn about impressing others. When I deliberately dis-engage in uninteresting conversations with "smart people" I can see them judging me immediately. Sometimes I just don't want to faux-argue over inconsequential bullshit. The older you get the better you get at letting your ego go in these kinds of meaningless contests.

mkramlich 16y ago
> When I deliberately dis-engage in uninteresting conversations with "smart people" I can see them judging me immediately. Agreed. And this is the perspective I have for a lot of the discussion threads here on HN. I love HN. But honestly, much of the so-called discussion here is picking at nits and stamp collecting. Even when you "win" you lose because you've wasted the time and effort that could have been better spent in the real world, or doing something to improve your financial or health situation. Not saying all discussion is bad, but one should pick and choose and get the most bang for your buck.

Jayasimhan 16y ago

> ..there often isn't much difference between someone who appears smart and someone who doesn't... Maybe they're just a fish out of water, spending too much time on things that don't interest him. Amen!

deadmansshoes 16y ago
"Maybe they're just a fish out of water, spending too much time on things that don't interest him." Doesn't sound too smart..

mynameishere 16y ago

You're right about the head injury. That's the only thing that can make any two people on earth intellectual equals.

runT1ME 16y ago

I guess I don't understand your need to have the phrase 'intellectual horsepower' or even 'bright' or 'smart' tied to someone's genetic makeup and potential. If I see a really big guy in the gym lifting a ton of weight, we can agree he's strong. That doesn't make a judgement on his work ethic vs. his genetics, and it doesn't imply that people who aren't as strong don't have every bit of potential to get to where he is. It's simply an observation on the facts of reality the way they are now. Now, I happen to be in the camp that believes you can make yourself smarter, so passing judgement on someone's intellectual horsepower in no way is me critiquing their potential.

silverbax88 16y ago

We are all simply products of intelligence + environment. I am however, more to the reverse of your experience. I used to believe that almost everyone could be amazing and brilliant if just given the opportunity and another set of circumstances. While I know that to be true in some cases, I also have learned over the years that many people just aren't bright enough to get advanced concepts and never will.

trunnell 16y ago

Intelligence is real but very difficult to quantify. The last time I was familiar with the literature (~10 years ago), intelligence was best defined as having many dimensions. It's a collection of weakly related gifts. Spatial reasoning, for example, is a different kind of intelligence than musical ability. Perhaps someone more up to date on the science can chime in. In any case, attempts to squash all those dimensions into a single numerical scale (like an IQ) hide a lot of information and can be very misleading.

jacques_chester 16y ago
IQ is the KSLOC of the psychometrics world.
vacri 16y ago
Way back when I was studying intelligence there were a number of specialties, but there were three broad groups that these specialties seemed to cohere under: 1) Algorithmic intelligence: the layman's usual picture of intellegence around working with concepts, figures, space, so on and so forth 2) Verbal intelligence: working with language and expression, vocabulary, etc 3) Social intelligence: being able to read people and social situations This was the state of play ~15 years ago and things may have restructured, but it points out that acuity can be in places other than the usual geeky fare. The sales guy that can sell you something you don't want and make you feel good about it is able to read your cues and formulate responses to counter 'incorrect' behaviour.
nostrademons 16y ago
Intelligence may or may not have multiple facets, but the "multiple intelligences" fad proposed by Howard Gardner was basically shown to be bunk, devoid of any real scientific evidence.

brm 16y ago

I read this: “There are very few who are as inherently bright as Natalie is, who have as much intellectual horsepower, who work as hard as she did. She didn’t take a single thing for granted.” As: Few people who have the same level of intelligence she does, work as hard as she did. As I understood it, the professor was saying that she outworked her peers, not that she was the smartest of the group but that her work ethic made her exceptional in an already smart group