4 ms·

This is a classic conflation; comparing real life success (where you would hopefully not choose to place yourself into a highly competitive business environment

by _hyn3 5y ago

This is a classic conflation; comparing real life success (where you would hopefully not choose to place yourself into a highly competitive business environment, unless you had a unique ability to win) versus a contrived scenario like the Olympics, where success is literally pitting two highly talented people in a competition where both cannot win. In business, you can open a restaurant and be just as successful (or as unsuccessful) as your counterpart on a different street, or even right next door. There is no first and second place medalist in that scenario. Life is not a competition unless you choose to make it one. There can be only one President at a time; only one gold medalist at a time in any event, but there can be many Elon Musks or Kanye Wests. Ultra-performing people work hard to get to the top, and then the same habits that put them there expand their "lead", but Elon Musk isn't in direct competition with anyone else at being the best Elon Musk he can be.

k__ 5y ago
I'm not so sure about this. Wanting to work at FAANG is basically the olympics of IT, and people still try to do it all the time.
- alboy 5y ago
  This seems way off. The number of engineers working at FAANG is in the hundreds of thousands, an athlete that is 100000th best in the world is basically a hobbyist rando.
  - void_mint 5y ago
    It's all relative. There are more professional software engineers than professional weight lifters. The top 1% work at FAANG, the top 1% go to the olympics.
    - alboy 5y ago
      The whole Olympic roster for the US is ~500 people. There's half a million people who are current NCAA athletes, that's an order of magnitude off right there, even after excluding football and before counting in the actual pros.
      - void_mint 5y ago
        This example kind of falls apart with respect to the Olympics for an array of reasons. If you're looking at NCAA athletes, lots of those sports are not represented in the Olympics. Also, because spots in the Olympics are limited, the "best" person isn't always chosen to represent a given country for a given sport.
        alboy 5y ago
        >If you're looking at NCAA athletes, lots of those sports are not represented in the Olympics. Not really, just football and lacrosse. On the other hand, there're many Olympic events that are not a part of the NCAA. >Also, because spots in the Olympics are limited, the "best" person isn't always chosen to represent a given country for a given sport. I don't think this is particularly important on average. I'm just giving a quick and dirty lower bound here to put things into perspective.
        void_mint 5y ago
        > I don't think this is particularly important on average. I'm just giving a quick and dirty lower bound here to put things into perspective. ...how? "This person did nothing wrong and still did not make it to the olympics". That's literally what we're debating?
        alboy 5y ago
        This thread is clearly about comparing the probabilities of getting into FAANG vs getting into the Olympics. The situation with varying relative competitiveness of the local "scene" in a particular country is the same in both cases, despite the fact that even the 1% figure for FAANG engineers would only work under the assumption of the global pool of candidates (~20 mil software engineers worldwide), all willing to relocate and prioritizing FAANG above all other employers (a lot of assumptions). Tldr: no, being kinda good at leetcode is not an Olympic-level feat, try the ICPC.
        5y ago
void_mint 5y ago
> This is a classic conflation; comparing real life success (where you would hopefully not choose to place yourself into a highly competitive business environment, unless you had a unique ability to win) Two people that are extremely talented interviewed for a position in which there is only 1 opening. One is selected, one isn't. Is this not a competition? Did the person that wasn't selected work less hard? Working hard puts you in contention for lots of extremely competitive things in life. Often times, luck is the thing that decides which of the extremely talented, hard working individuals succeed and at what scale.

by _hyn3 5y ago

k__ 5y ago

I'm not so sure about this. Wanting to work at FAANG is basically the olympics of IT, and people still try to do it all the time.

alboy 5y ago
This seems way off. The number of engineers working at FAANG is in the hundreds of thousands, an athlete that is 100000th best in the world is basically a hobbyist rando.
- void_mint 5y ago
  It's all relative. There are more professional software engineers than professional weight lifters. The top 1% work at FAANG, the top 1% go to the olympics.
  - alboy 5y ago
    The whole Olympic roster for the US is ~500 people. There's half a million people who are current NCAA athletes, that's an order of magnitude off right there, even after excluding football and before counting in the actual pros.
    - void_mint 5y ago
      This example kind of falls apart with respect to the Olympics for an array of reasons. If you're looking at NCAA athletes, lots of those sports are not represented in the Olympics. Also, because spots in the Olympics are limited, the "best" person isn't always chosen to represent a given country for a given sport.
      - alboy 5y ago
        >If you're looking at NCAA athletes, lots of those sports are not represented in the Olympics. Not really, just football and lacrosse. On the other hand, there're many Olympic events that are not a part of the NCAA. >Also, because spots in the Olympics are limited, the "best" person isn't always chosen to represent a given country for a given sport. I don't think this is particularly important on average. I'm just giving a quick and dirty lower bound here to put things into perspective.
        void_mint 5y ago
        > I don't think this is particularly important on average. I'm just giving a quick and dirty lower bound here to put things into perspective. ...how? "This person did nothing wrong and still did not make it to the olympics". That's literally what we're debating?
        alboy 5y ago
        This thread is clearly about comparing the probabilities of getting into FAANG vs getting into the Olympics. The situation with varying relative competitiveness of the local "scene" in a particular country is the same in both cases, despite the fact that even the 1% figure for FAANG engineers would only work under the assumption of the global pool of candidates (~20 mil software engineers worldwide), all willing to relocate and prioritizing FAANG above all other employers (a lot of assumptions). Tldr: no, being kinda good at leetcode is not an Olympic-level feat, try the ICPC.
        5y ago

void_mint 5y ago

> This is a classic conflation; comparing real life success (where you would hopefully not choose to place yourself into a highly competitive business environment, unless you had a unique ability to win) Two people that are extremely talented interviewed for a position in which there is only 1 opening. One is selected, one isn't. Is this not a competition? Did the person that wasn't selected work less hard? Working hard puts you in contention for lots of extremely competitive things in life. Often times, luck is the thing that decides which of the extremely talented, hard working individuals succeed and at what scale.