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Certainly a nice positive message, and there's no doubt that consistency and discipline can take you very far. "Slow and steady wins the race" is a mantra we've

Certainly a nice positive message, and there's no doubt that consistency and discipline can take you very far. "Slow and steady wins the race" is a mantra we've all heard before. But it really depends what "your field" is, and how old you are. For example, good luck pivoting mid-career from software engineering to professional hockey. Also, "not that hard" means different things to each of us. Some people are so passionate about their hobbies that giving them up to be in the top 10% (according to whatever metric) is not even close to an attractive tradeoff. In life we all have a trajectory determined by our genetics, environment, childhood, and life decisions. Don't let that limit your imagination and ambition. But you'd be foolish to believe the laws of physics don't apply to you.

victorronin 5y ago
OP here. First of all. You are 100% right. Genetics, environment, and everything else put you on some trajectory. It's much easier if this trajectory helps you. It's much harder if it works against you. I overgeneralized the title. However, within the article, I mentioned that my blog is mostly for software engineers (and not hockey players). Talking about getting in pro hockey is unfair. It's like saying, I want to be in the top 10% of Olympic participants( which actually put you in 0.000001% of all people participating in the sport). It would be the same thing if I said, it's easy to get to top 10% of 1000 best AI experts in the world. I am more talking about the whole field (all of the software engineers).
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  Fair points and thanks for bringing balance to the discussion, I did take some creative liberty there and may have extrapolated your thesis to an extreme that you did not necessarily advocate.
Zababa 5y ago
> For example, good luck pivoting mid-career from software engineering to professional hockey. I think part of it is due to professional hockey employing only the top X% of players, with X really low. So even if you're top 10% it doesn't matter, at all.

victorronin 5y ago

OP here. First of all. You are 100% right. Genetics, environment, and everything else put you on some trajectory. It's much easier if this trajectory helps you. It's much harder if it works against you. I overgeneralized the title. However, within the article, I mentioned that my blog is mostly for software engineers (and not hockey players). Talking about getting in pro hockey is unfair. It's like saying, I want to be in the top 10% of Olympic participants( which actually put you in 0.000001% of all people participating in the sport). It would be the same thing if I said, it's easy to get to top 10% of 1000 best AI experts in the world. I am more talking about the whole field (all of the software engineers).

criticaltinker 5y ago
Fair points and thanks for bringing balance to the discussion, I did take some creative liberty there and may have extrapolated your thesis to an extreme that you did not necessarily advocate.

Zababa 5y ago

> For example, good luck pivoting mid-career from software engineering to professional hockey. I think part of it is due to professional hockey employing only the top X% of players, with X really low. So even if you're top 10% it doesn't matter, at all.