28 ms·

Tyler Cowen is a curator of talent

168 points by animalia 5y ago

caslon 5y ago
> In comparison, Forbes 30U30, MIT Tech Review TR35, or Stat Wunderkind, and other industry awards that highlight talent are lagging indicators of success. At least one of these you have to explicitly ask to be added to to be mentioned in. It's worthless as a measure of value, yet taken to be one by this person. That's what more money than sense gets you, I guess: A worship of dilettantes and a reliance on marketers to make commercials to advertise every opportunity to you.
skystarman 5y ago
Cowen is a unique talent in the world. One of the most smartest people you'll ever read or speak to. It seems he has at least a modest understanding of important topics in almost any field you can mention, and an impressive mastery in a few dozen. From Brutalist architecture, tennis to Latin American art. He talks and writes about politics, but rarely if ever is dogmatic or partisan. Has no problem admitting he was wrong about something, or that he doesn't know the answer (depressingly rare). I highly recommend his blog and podcast. IMO the most underrated interviewer in the game. Each of his guests he researches deeply and always asks the most incisive, intelligent questions you wish you had thought of. TC is fairly popular among the HN set but could always be more widely known.
- gooseyard 5y ago
  I first learned about him when I moved to DC and discovered Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide (https://tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com/ https://tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com/) which had my family and I traveling all over the DC metro area trying some of the cool picks from the list. I am amazed that he has time to keep it up given all the other stuff he's up to, but I think that sort of sums up his nature :)
  - coyotespike 5y ago
    Yes! When I travel anywhere, I look to see if Tyler Cowen has been there first - he has recommendations for what to see, how to see it, and what to eat.
- Proven 5y ago
  > Has no problem admitting he was wrong about something, or that he doesn't know the answer (depressingly rare). On the contrary, he generally suggests that government and "experts" can analyze issues and devise appropriate "policies" (including climate changes, yep) for all of us. I tried to ignore that for years, but the pattern continued so eventually I had to stop following him. More recently I heard - those interested may want to check his blog rather than believe my recollection - that he was in favor of strict lockdowns or mandatory vaccination (I can't remember which, but I wasn't surprised when I heard about it). Sadly, the man is a statist.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  He changed his mind regarding stagnation. The ability to change one's mind is something that seems to be lost these days.
emaginniss 5y ago
Sounds like the issue of correlation and causation isn't solidified here. Maybe the very fact of Tyler Cowen recognizes them is what makes them so successful. He invests, puts their names out there and a lot of the elements needed for success fall at their feet. Or maybe Cowen made a deal with the devil and can predict the future. Hard to tell without a control group where Cowen doesn't exist.
- antupis 5y ago
  Also marginal revolution and his podcasts probably pulls in right kinda people.
- progbits 5y ago
  I agree there is likely impact from the recognition itself. Shouldn't be hard to verify, no? Have him pick 2N candidates, randomly select half that he can not announce publicly, talk to or otherwise influence (impossible to prevent entirely but "good enough" will suffice to establish a difference). Then look at how the two groups are doing some time down the line.
  - carnitine 5y ago
    Not hard to verify in some weird vacuum where completely pointless albeit simple sounding things are done to validate random conjectures, yes.
    - emaginniss 5y ago
      Assume a spherical cow in a vacuum...
    - majormajor 5y ago
      If I was a person trying to find talented people with potential to do great things, and I cared about the quality of my selection process, I think doing things like that would be extremely necessary. You can't improve what you can't measure. But is the goal of these sorts of things often actually to select the best?
neilv 5y ago
> As discussed above, Tyler eliminates the first need - efficiency - through selective distribution. Because the program keeps a low profile, there is a manageable number of applications (2000 at current date, running over the past 4 years) and the average quality is very high. At least for a hyperlexic, it is indeed possible to read and score every essay. Will this article disrupt that?
shafyy 5y ago
I'm a grantee of Tyler's Emergent Ventures program (I was in batch 2) and I have to say that I was impressed by the people I met during the Emergent Ventures unconference (there was one two years ago and there will be another one this November). I really felt out of place, since everyone else seemed so much more accomplished and smart.
- freewilly1040 5y ago
  There's lots written about imposter syndrome probably worth checking out. A good tidbit of advice I have heard for when you feel unqualified or out of place: Ask yourself, do you think the person who invited you / hired you is stupid? Probably not, given the people around you smart and capable. In this specific case, of course, finding people who are not yet accomplished is entirely the point. Congrats on your selection.
  - shafyy 5y ago
    Thank you! That's true, and I didn't mean to say that I think that I'm stupid or unaccomplished. I feel like I deserved it. I was just impressed by some of the other people. For example, there was this teenager who was building CubeSats. All I did at that age was play World of Warcraft =D
- webmaven 5y ago
  > I really felt out of place, since everyone else seemed so much more accomplished and smart. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Believing this would quickly kill every room as the people inside leave.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      A better way of getting the point across is “spend time with people who can help you grow”. And since no human is the best at everything, two people can both help each other grow.
legitster 5y ago
Cowen is truly unique. He's one of the only "public intellectuals" who has replied to my random emails on multiple occasions. Everyone should listen to some episodes of Conversations with Tyler. I normally hate interview podcasts, but it is bar none the best one out there. It doesn't matter the topic - the questions he is able to hit his subjects with are amazing, nothing at all like how most interviews go.
- drpgq 5y ago
  Econtalk is a pretty good podcast that's similar.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Russ tries really hard to keep an open mind, but especially now that he's getting more into political philosophy I find it hard to take him seriously depending on the guest. It can be interesting to listen to his shit takes for a while, but it grows tiresome pretty quickly.
    - emtel 5y ago
      Wow, is there some other Russ Roberts with a podcast? I can't believe you'd say this. He's the most thoughtful, humble, and introspective interviewer I'm aware of. What in the world do you mean by "shit takes"?
      - colinmhayes 5y ago
        Russ doesn't believe in the concept of expected value. Check out the episode with Peter Singer. Most of his episodes are great though.
  - legitster 5y ago
    Long time listener of Econtalk, but Russ tends to digress a lot and covers his interests. Still a great show, but Conversations feels on another level.
  - 5y ago
keiferski 5y ago
The section on art collecting highlights the limitations of an economics-based approach to defining "talent." Cowen is an economist and this colors his entire approach. “You learn about other cultures, you learn different points of view by refining your eye and you develop a skill that is extremely useful for judging other things and cracking cultural codes in other settings. It’s an education in market economics - art markets. Like how do you buy the best pictures in an area Haitian art, or how do you assemble a very good voodoo flag collection? How do you get artists in Mexico to do their best work for you? That’s a business problem that you need to solve. You want experience at solving a broad diversity of problems, to heighten your aesthetic sense, to learn some real history, and to understand how some of the art world works, surround yourself with beauty. And you should buy it for the love of the art, and try to find that which other people have not really found or appreciated yet. It’s just like the world of ideas right? It is the world of ideas. It just costs more to play in it in terms of upfront dollar commitments.” [Tyler Cowen: Production Function. David Perrell, North Star Podcast.] Relying on markets and the opinions of others may be effective in determining current economic value, but it is not a fruitful approach for finding "talent", broadly defined. Contemporary art is an excellent place to observe this phenomenon; there is very little connection between "aesthetic value" and "market value." The art market is a fascinating thing, but make no mistake, the most popular artists are not the most "talented", by whatever definition of talent you may have. "Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they to wait until they know what hath fallen into their depths. Away from the marketplace and from fame taketh place all that is great: away from the marketplace and from fame have ever dwelt the devisers of new values." - Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- kqr 5y ago
  > there is very little connection between "aesthetic value" and "market value." Wait, so how do you determine this "aesthetic value" if not by how much people are willing to work to acquire it? Your personal opinion? Some authority figure? Maths?
  - keiferski 5y ago
    Philosophers, artists, and other thinkers have written about aesthetics for thousands of years. Truly answering your question would take a long time, but a short version might be something like: the collective opinions of a diverse group of highly informed and experienced (not necessarily educated as in a university) individuals. But that's just one approach and there are many others. Even then, anything is probably superior to using monetary value as equivalent to anything other than what the market currently prices it as. I certainly don't think the most expensive painting is the most beautiful one, although it may be not be totally uncorrelated. If you're interested in these kinds of questions, definitely look into the philosophical field of aesthetics.
calcsam 5y ago
It's also worth noting that Tyler is an uncommonly good interviewer, largely because he asks very good, and unique, questions (see https://conversationswithtyler.com/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/). I suspect these two skills are related.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  I think it's even better the other way around: he has a knack for coming up with counter-intuitive explanations, or re-framing problems or issues in a way that is illuminating or goes against conventional wisdom. Like about healthcare for example.
  - pas 5y ago
    Could you expand on (or link to) that healthcare re-framing? Thanks!
- karaterobot 5y ago
  Agreed, and he asks unique questions not only because he's got an unusual turn of mind, but because he does (or seems to do) an enormous amount of prep work for each interview. Some of my favorite moments on that show are when he asks a subject something related to an old blog post they wrote on a personal topic, or a paper they contributed to as a grad student, and they're like "wait, you know about that?"
- the_watcher 5y ago
  The episode with John McWhorter is my favorite example of this - McWhorter is audibly delighted by Cowen's questions about linguistics.
- wenc 5y ago
  He does but it’s only partly due to his omnivorous interests and mostly due to the fact that he does a boatload of research on the interviewee, so there’s hard work involved too. (he reveals this in a meta episode)
klelatti 5y ago
Tyler clearly brings: - Intense curiosity - Deep knowledge of economics - Strong interpersonal skills - Risk taking bias - e.g. focus on MR was a significant risk for him No surprise that he's exceptionally good at identifying and backing talent in this way.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  not just economics, he has a wide repertoire of knowledge about many things . Eric Wienstein is similar in this regard.
  - klelatti 5y ago
    Agree 100% - just focused on economics as probably a bit more relevant in this context as an investor. I actually think the curiosity and risk taking bias are key here.
elefanten 5y ago
>Still, the program keeps a low profile. Even with Tyler’s tall stature, a Google search of “Emergent Ventures Tyler Cowen” shows results only from Tyler / GMU’s own promotion, one short TechCrunch article, a mention on LessWrong / Effective Altruism, a mention on Hacker News, and a small number of Emergent Ventures winners’ blogs and podcasts. Well, publishing articles with hyperbolic titles seems like painting a big, glowing target for status-seekers to come and ruin Cowen's signal-to-noise ratio.
felipe_ii 5y ago
I wonder if this article is an example of the submarine coming to surface (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html). I say this because back when I used to frequent Marginal Revolution, I found that there was a good deal of self-promotion of Cowen's work in the website - for example, he would link an interesting news story and provide minimal commentary, but then would link his tangentially related research. I understand his incentive for doing this, but the amount of self-promotion was enough to annoy me and make me stop reading. Years later, I attended a presentation that Cowen gave that was ostensibly on his book the Great Stagnation, but in reality it turned out to be a demonstration of some online learning venture he was bankrolling at the time. He's a smart and productive guy, no doubt, but my (anecdotal) experiences make me wonder about what is behind an article like this.
- Matticus_Rex 5y ago
  I think I know the one you're talking about, and he wasn't bankrolling it -- it was just one of his projects through Mercatus. And they had a bunch of course content on the Great Stagnation, which was definitely relevant.
  - felipe_ii 5y ago
    Apologies, I should've really just said that he had a vested interest in it. Either way, the people that came to the presentation didn't come to hear about the product he was promoting - we wanted, at least I wanted, to hear the ideas in his book. Instead we got the old switcheroo.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    And Mercatus is in turn has been bankrolled by the Koch brothers. I may be biased but I sort of see Cowan’s part of role as something akin to cross between a PR rep and a economic academic rep for a particular set of views to align with that funding source.
    - Matticus_Rex 5y ago
      Tyler believes what he believes, and would be trying to do what he's trying to do even if no one agreed with him. I've known a lot of people who have worked at Mercatus over the years, and that has been true of all of them (and, surprisingly to many, they're not all libertarian -- Mercatus has funded a lot of people and projects for stuff that doesn't reflect Koch views). Tyler himself is definitely not perfectly aligned with the Kochs' views on things, but he is very effective, which is why he's the president at Mercatus. The conspiracist right's complex over Soros and the conspiracist left's complex over the Kochs are two sides of the same coin, with their own terrible book-length screeds to match.
bwanab 5y ago
I highly recommend his blog/newsletter “Marginal Revolution”.
- adlorger 5y ago
  prob safe to assume that almost everyone who has clicked into a HN article mentioning TC is already very familiar with MR
  - khazhoux 5y ago
    Not at all. The safer assumption is that HN readers here in this discussion today have never heard of him or MR. I've never heard of him, and I think I keep up pretty well in tech.
  - cm2012 5y ago
    Found this thread interesting, never heard of him or MR
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    I may be a minority but I’ve only heard his podcast.
    - paconbork 5y ago
      Interestingly I knew about MR but didn't know he had a well-liked podcast
  - Symmetry 5y ago
    Everybody has to go through the lucky 10,000 at some point. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
thesausageking 5y ago
I had never heard of this award and the author doesn't give great evidence that it actually has a great success rate. Looking at the past winners: https://marginalrevolution.com/?s=emergent+ventures+winners https://marginalrevolution.com/?s=emergent+ventures+winners A number of award winners are already very accomplished. In this most recent cohort, there's a woman who's a professor at Brown, has a PhD from Harvard, and written multiple books. It would be interesting to see how accomplished the award winners are and how early in their careers they received the award.
- the_watcher 5y ago
  While it's true he will give grants to accomplished people, he also makes far more grants to smart young people (often from non-Western, lower income nations) that are _not_ accomplished, for things like "general career development". People like Byrne Hobart and David Perell launched their writing careers via EM. And even in the list you linked to, there's a 15 year old and a high school junior. Regarding success rate, his explicit goal is to fund extremely ambitious people and projects that would otherwise struggle or not get funding at all. This could mean funding the most speculative or risky (or highly societally beneficial but lower financial return) ideas from already accomplished people or funding talented people that would struggle to get funding otherwise (due to age, access to capital, etc). I believe (and I think TC agrees) that there are likely many people and projects whose course could be substantially altered for the better if given access to a reasonably small amount of money early enough to convince the person to work on it full time.
  - thesausageking 5y ago
    By “success” I mean at curating talent, which the author claims Cowen is the best at in the world. It’s easy to recognize talent many years into someone’s career when they’ve accomplished a lot. I’m curious what his record is like in finding people with talent who haven’t yet done much.
    - the_watcher 5y ago
      That's why I mentioned Byrne Hobart and David Perell, two people I regularly read and built businesses partially funded by EV.
Dumblydorr 5y ago
What a sensational title, it's so tech-focused and the article fetishizes smartness in a bizarre way. There are talent curators in every single field, for instance from baseball, this reminds me of those old advisors in the movie Moneyball, who look at how people seem to be rather than using actual evidence of prior performance. Where is the quantification of TC's magical power? It's narrative, not numbers. The article doesn't address his failure rate or the bias of these selected stars getting a huge boost from a rich established individual. Skepticism aside, I think we'd do well as a society to pull 18 year olds with a lot of promise out of college and directly into ventures for a year or two. They can always go back if they need to, but I question the wisdom of putting our best youth into a college system where their efforts are entirely hoop-jumping, self-promotional classes that contribute to a GPA but to no one else. We're effectively squandering their apprenticeship on grade values, not on projects or useful deliverables.
- pc86 5y ago
  Imagine thinking someone's formative years should be spent on "useful deliverables."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - cltby 5y ago
    It's called an apprenticeship. It already exists; it's widely used; and it's wildly better for most kids than every other extant alternative.
- borroka 5y ago
  Am I the only one here who thinks TC knows nothing about many things and his main skill is putting himself out there? I admire his range and understanding and use of the halo effect, but when he talks about some of the fields I know, I can't help but notice that he waves his hands more than those airfield attendants who tell pilots how to move runaway planes.
  - 5y ago
jger15 5y ago
excited for his upcoming book on the subject with daniel gross: https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Identify-Energizers-Creatives-Winners/dp/1250275814 https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Identify-Energizers-Creatives-...
b8 5y ago
One can argue that Dr. Jim Simons is the best curator of talent. Look at Quanta Magazine or Renaissance Technologies. Both places have exceptional people, and constantly produce good results. Rentech has beat the market for the past 30 years. Quanta Magazine has published many good articles that has been on HN's front page and have mentioned in Wired Magazine etc.
- djmips 5y ago
  Best is subjective.
yuy910616 5y ago
Can anyone comment on Cowen's economic/political view? Last I've heard he's kind of a dying breed of Hayek supporter, but looking at his wikipedia page - it seems like even he has adopted a much more sympathetic view towards bigger government. Not to say anything about libertarian - I'm just curious.
- pas 5y ago
  I recommend listening to this discussion/interview with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgRUujWZ__o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgRUujWZ__o He talks about "too much regulation is choking the economy" guy, but he really means "lack of equity" (as in immigration is unnecessarily hard, building regulation is insane, etc), FAA regulation on supersonic flight currently hinders innovation (because it's not noise based but speed based).

168 points by animalia 5y ago

> In comparison, Forbes 30U30, MIT Tech Review TR35, or Stat Wunderkind, and other industry awards that highlight talent are lagging indicators of success. At least one of these you have to explicitly ask to be added to to be mentioned in. It's worthless as a measure of value, yet taken to be one by this person. That's what more money than sense gets you, I guess: A worship of dilettantes and a reliance on marketers to make commercials to advertise every opportunity to you.

skystarman 5y ago

Cowen is a unique talent in the world. One of the most smartest people you'll ever read or speak to. It seems he has at least a modest understanding of important topics in almost any field you can mention, and an impressive mastery in a few dozen. From Brutalist architecture, tennis to Latin American art. He talks and writes about politics, but rarely if ever is dogmatic or partisan. Has no problem admitting he was wrong about something, or that he doesn't know the answer (depressingly rare). I highly recommend his blog and podcast. IMO the most underrated interviewer in the game. Each of his guests he researches deeply and always asks the most incisive, intelligent questions you wish you had thought of. TC is fairly popular among the HN set but could always be more widely known.

gooseyard 5y ago
I first learned about him when I moved to DC and discovered Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide (https://tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com/ https://tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com/) which had my family and I traveling all over the DC metro area trying some of the cool picks from the list. I am amazed that he has time to keep it up given all the other stuff he's up to, but I think that sort of sums up his nature :)
- coyotespike 5y ago
  Yes! When I travel anywhere, I look to see if Tyler Cowen has been there first - he has recommendations for what to see, how to see it, and what to eat.
Proven 5y ago
> Has no problem admitting he was wrong about something, or that he doesn't know the answer (depressingly rare). On the contrary, he generally suggests that government and "experts" can analyze issues and devise appropriate "policies" (including climate changes, yep) for all of us. I tried to ignore that for years, but the pattern continued so eventually I had to stop following him. More recently I heard - those interested may want to check his blog rather than believe my recollection - that he was in favor of strict lockdowns or mandatory vaccination (I can't remember which, but I wasn't surprised when I heard about it). Sadly, the man is a statist.
paulpauper 5y ago
He changed his mind regarding stagnation. The ability to change one's mind is something that seems to be lost these days.

emaginniss 5y ago

Sounds like the issue of correlation and causation isn't solidified here. Maybe the very fact of Tyler Cowen recognizes them is what makes them so successful. He invests, puts their names out there and a lot of the elements needed for success fall at their feet. Or maybe Cowen made a deal with the devil and can predict the future. Hard to tell without a control group where Cowen doesn't exist.

antupis 5y ago
Also marginal revolution and his podcasts probably pulls in right kinda people.
progbits 5y ago
I agree there is likely impact from the recognition itself. Shouldn't be hard to verify, no? Have him pick 2N candidates, randomly select half that he can not announce publicly, talk to or otherwise influence (impossible to prevent entirely but "good enough" will suffice to establish a difference). Then look at how the two groups are doing some time down the line.
- carnitine 5y ago
  Not hard to verify in some weird vacuum where completely pointless albeit simple sounding things are done to validate random conjectures, yes.
  - emaginniss 5y ago
    Assume a spherical cow in a vacuum...
  - majormajor 5y ago
    If I was a person trying to find talented people with potential to do great things, and I cared about the quality of my selection process, I think doing things like that would be extremely necessary. You can't improve what you can't measure. But is the goal of these sorts of things often actually to select the best?

neilv 5y ago

> As discussed above, Tyler eliminates the first need - efficiency - through selective distribution. Because the program keeps a low profile, there is a manageable number of applications (2000 at current date, running over the past 4 years) and the average quality is very high. At least for a hyperlexic, it is indeed possible to read and score every essay. Will this article disrupt that?

shafyy 5y ago

I'm a grantee of Tyler's Emergent Ventures program (I was in batch 2) and I have to say that I was impressed by the people I met during the Emergent Ventures unconference (there was one two years ago and there will be another one this November). I really felt out of place, since everyone else seemed so much more accomplished and smart.

freewilly1040 5y ago
There's lots written about imposter syndrome probably worth checking out. A good tidbit of advice I have heard for when you feel unqualified or out of place: Ask yourself, do you think the person who invited you / hired you is stupid? Probably not, given the people around you smart and capable. In this specific case, of course, finding people who are not yet accomplished is entirely the point. Congrats on your selection.
- shafyy 5y ago
  Thank you! That's true, and I didn't mean to say that I think that I'm stupid or unaccomplished. I feel like I deserved it. I was just impressed by some of the other people. For example, there was this teenager who was building CubeSats. All I did at that age was play World of Warcraft =D
webmaven 5y ago
> I really felt out of place, since everyone else seemed so much more accomplished and smart. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Believing this would quickly kill every room as the people inside leave.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    A better way of getting the point across is “spend time with people who can help you grow”. And since no human is the best at everything, two people can both help each other grow.

legitster 5y ago

Cowen is truly unique. He's one of the only "public intellectuals" who has replied to my random emails on multiple occasions. Everyone should listen to some episodes of Conversations with Tyler. I normally hate interview podcasts, but it is bar none the best one out there. It doesn't matter the topic - the questions he is able to hit his subjects with are amazing, nothing at all like how most interviews go.

drpgq 5y ago
Econtalk is a pretty good podcast that's similar.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Russ tries really hard to keep an open mind, but especially now that he's getting more into political philosophy I find it hard to take him seriously depending on the guest. It can be interesting to listen to his shit takes for a while, but it grows tiresome pretty quickly.
  - emtel 5y ago
    Wow, is there some other Russ Roberts with a podcast? I can't believe you'd say this. He's the most thoughtful, humble, and introspective interviewer I'm aware of. What in the world do you mean by "shit takes"?
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      Russ doesn't believe in the concept of expected value. Check out the episode with Peter Singer. Most of his episodes are great though.
- legitster 5y ago
  Long time listener of Econtalk, but Russ tends to digress a lot and covers his interests. Still a great show, but Conversations feels on another level.
- 5y ago

keiferski 5y ago

The section on art collecting highlights the limitations of an economics-based approach to defining "talent." Cowen is an economist and this colors his entire approach. “You learn about other cultures, you learn different points of view by refining your eye and you develop a skill that is extremely useful for judging other things and cracking cultural codes in other settings. It’s an education in market economics - art markets. Like how do you buy the best pictures in an area Haitian art, or how do you assemble a very good voodoo flag collection? How do you get artists in Mexico to do their best work for you? That’s a business problem that you need to solve. You want experience at solving a broad diversity of problems, to heighten your aesthetic sense, to learn some real history, and to understand how some of the art world works, surround yourself with beauty. And you should buy it for the love of the art, and try to find that which other people have not really found or appreciated yet. It’s just like the world of ideas right? It is the world of ideas. It just costs more to play in it in terms of upfront dollar commitments.” [Tyler Cowen: Production Function. David Perrell, North Star Podcast.] Relying on markets and the opinions of others may be effective in determining current economic value, but it is not a fruitful approach for finding "talent", broadly defined. Contemporary art is an excellent place to observe this phenomenon; there is very little connection between "aesthetic value" and "market value." The art market is a fascinating thing, but make no mistake, the most popular artists are not the most "talented", by whatever definition of talent you may have. "Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they to wait until they know what hath fallen into their depths. Away from the marketplace and from fame taketh place all that is great: away from the marketplace and from fame have ever dwelt the devisers of new values." - Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

kqr 5y ago
> there is very little connection between "aesthetic value" and "market value." Wait, so how do you determine this "aesthetic value" if not by how much people are willing to work to acquire it? Your personal opinion? Some authority figure? Maths?
- keiferski 5y ago
  Philosophers, artists, and other thinkers have written about aesthetics for thousands of years. Truly answering your question would take a long time, but a short version might be something like: the collective opinions of a diverse group of highly informed and experienced (not necessarily educated as in a university) individuals. But that's just one approach and there are many others. Even then, anything is probably superior to using monetary value as equivalent to anything other than what the market currently prices it as. I certainly don't think the most expensive painting is the most beautiful one, although it may be not be totally uncorrelated. If you're interested in these kinds of questions, definitely look into the philosophical field of aesthetics.

calcsam 5y ago

It's also worth noting that Tyler is an uncommonly good interviewer, largely because he asks very good, and unique, questions (see https://conversationswithtyler.com/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/). I suspect these two skills are related.

paulpauper 5y ago
I think it's even better the other way around: he has a knack for coming up with counter-intuitive explanations, or re-framing problems or issues in a way that is illuminating or goes against conventional wisdom. Like about healthcare for example.
- pas 5y ago
  Could you expand on (or link to) that healthcare re-framing? Thanks!
karaterobot 5y ago
Agreed, and he asks unique questions not only because he's got an unusual turn of mind, but because he does (or seems to do) an enormous amount of prep work for each interview. Some of my favorite moments on that show are when he asks a subject something related to an old blog post they wrote on a personal topic, or a paper they contributed to as a grad student, and they're like "wait, you know about that?"
the_watcher 5y ago
The episode with John McWhorter is my favorite example of this - McWhorter is audibly delighted by Cowen's questions about linguistics.
wenc 5y ago
He does but it’s only partly due to his omnivorous interests and mostly due to the fact that he does a boatload of research on the interviewee, so there’s hard work involved too. (he reveals this in a meta episode)

klelatti 5y ago

Tyler clearly brings: - Intense curiosity - Deep knowledge of economics - Strong interpersonal skills - Risk taking bias - e.g. focus on MR was a significant risk for him No surprise that he's exceptionally good at identifying and backing talent in this way.

paulpauper 5y ago
not just economics, he has a wide repertoire of knowledge about many things . Eric Wienstein is similar in this regard.
- klelatti 5y ago
  Agree 100% - just focused on economics as probably a bit more relevant in this context as an investor. I actually think the curiosity and risk taking bias are key here.

elefanten 5y ago

>Still, the program keeps a low profile. Even with Tyler’s tall stature, a Google search of “Emergent Ventures Tyler Cowen” shows results only from Tyler / GMU’s own promotion, one short TechCrunch article, a mention on LessWrong / Effective Altruism, a mention on Hacker News, and a small number of Emergent Ventures winners’ blogs and podcasts. Well, publishing articles with hyperbolic titles seems like painting a big, glowing target for status-seekers to come and ruin Cowen's signal-to-noise ratio.

felipe_ii 5y ago

I wonder if this article is an example of the submarine coming to surface (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html). I say this because back when I used to frequent Marginal Revolution, I found that there was a good deal of self-promotion of Cowen's work in the website - for example, he would link an interesting news story and provide minimal commentary, but then would link his tangentially related research. I understand his incentive for doing this, but the amount of self-promotion was enough to annoy me and make me stop reading. Years later, I attended a presentation that Cowen gave that was ostensibly on his book the Great Stagnation, but in reality it turned out to be a demonstration of some online learning venture he was bankrolling at the time. He's a smart and productive guy, no doubt, but my (anecdotal) experiences make me wonder about what is behind an article like this.

Matticus_Rex 5y ago
I think I know the one you're talking about, and he wasn't bankrolling it -- it was just one of his projects through Mercatus. And they had a bunch of course content on the Great Stagnation, which was definitely relevant.
- felipe_ii 5y ago
  Apologies, I should've really just said that he had a vested interest in it. Either way, the people that came to the presentation didn't come to hear about the product he was promoting - we wanted, at least I wanted, to hear the ideas in his book. Instead we got the old switcheroo.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  And Mercatus is in turn has been bankrolled by the Koch brothers. I may be biased but I sort of see Cowan’s part of role as something akin to cross between a PR rep and a economic academic rep for a particular set of views to align with that funding source.
  - Matticus_Rex 5y ago
    Tyler believes what he believes, and would be trying to do what he's trying to do even if no one agreed with him. I've known a lot of people who have worked at Mercatus over the years, and that has been true of all of them (and, surprisingly to many, they're not all libertarian -- Mercatus has funded a lot of people and projects for stuff that doesn't reflect Koch views). Tyler himself is definitely not perfectly aligned with the Kochs' views on things, but he is very effective, which is why he's the president at Mercatus. The conspiracist right's complex over Soros and the conspiracist left's complex over the Kochs are two sides of the same coin, with their own terrible book-length screeds to match.

bwanab 5y ago

I highly recommend his blog/newsletter “Marginal Revolution”.

adlorger 5y ago
prob safe to assume that almost everyone who has clicked into a HN article mentioning TC is already very familiar with MR
- khazhoux 5y ago
  Not at all. The safer assumption is that HN readers here in this discussion today have never heard of him or MR. I've never heard of him, and I think I keep up pretty well in tech.
- cm2012 5y ago
  Found this thread interesting, never heard of him or MR
- 1123581321 5y ago
  I may be a minority but I’ve only heard his podcast.
  - paconbork 5y ago
    Interestingly I knew about MR but didn't know he had a well-liked podcast
- Symmetry 5y ago
  Everybody has to go through the lucky 10,000 at some point. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

thesausageking 5y ago

I had never heard of this award and the author doesn't give great evidence that it actually has a great success rate. Looking at the past winners: https://marginalrevolution.com/?s=emergent+ventures+winners https://marginalrevolution.com/?s=emergent+ventures+winners A number of award winners are already very accomplished. In this most recent cohort, there's a woman who's a professor at Brown, has a PhD from Harvard, and written multiple books. It would be interesting to see how accomplished the award winners are and how early in their careers they received the award.

the_watcher 5y ago
While it's true he will give grants to accomplished people, he also makes far more grants to smart young people (often from non-Western, lower income nations) that are _not_ accomplished, for things like "general career development". People like Byrne Hobart and David Perell launched their writing careers via EM. And even in the list you linked to, there's a 15 year old and a high school junior. Regarding success rate, his explicit goal is to fund extremely ambitious people and projects that would otherwise struggle or not get funding at all. This could mean funding the most speculative or risky (or highly societally beneficial but lower financial return) ideas from already accomplished people or funding talented people that would struggle to get funding otherwise (due to age, access to capital, etc). I believe (and I think TC agrees) that there are likely many people and projects whose course could be substantially altered for the better if given access to a reasonably small amount of money early enough to convince the person to work on it full time.
- thesausageking 5y ago
  By “success” I mean at curating talent, which the author claims Cowen is the best at in the world. It’s easy to recognize talent many years into someone’s career when they’ve accomplished a lot. I’m curious what his record is like in finding people with talent who haven’t yet done much.
  - the_watcher 5y ago
    That's why I mentioned Byrne Hobart and David Perell, two people I regularly read and built businesses partially funded by EV.

Dumblydorr 5y ago

What a sensational title, it's so tech-focused and the article fetishizes smartness in a bizarre way. There are talent curators in every single field, for instance from baseball, this reminds me of those old advisors in the movie Moneyball, who look at how people seem to be rather than using actual evidence of prior performance. Where is the quantification of TC's magical power? It's narrative, not numbers. The article doesn't address his failure rate or the bias of these selected stars getting a huge boost from a rich established individual. Skepticism aside, I think we'd do well as a society to pull 18 year olds with a lot of promise out of college and directly into ventures for a year or two. They can always go back if they need to, but I question the wisdom of putting our best youth into a college system where their efforts are entirely hoop-jumping, self-promotional classes that contribute to a GPA but to no one else. We're effectively squandering their apprenticeship on grade values, not on projects or useful deliverables.

pc86 5y ago
Imagine thinking someone's formative years should be spent on "useful deliverables."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cltby 5y ago
  It's called an apprenticeship. It already exists; it's widely used; and it's wildly better for most kids than every other extant alternative.
borroka 5y ago
Am I the only one here who thinks TC knows nothing about many things and his main skill is putting himself out there? I admire his range and understanding and use of the halo effect, but when he talks about some of the fields I know, I can't help but notice that he waves his hands more than those airfield attendants who tell pilots how to move runaway planes.
- 5y ago

jger15 5y ago

excited for his upcoming book on the subject with daniel gross: https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Identify-Energizers-Creatives-Winners/dp/1250275814 https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Identify-Energizers-Creatives-...

b8 5y ago

One can argue that Dr. Jim Simons is the best curator of talent. Look at Quanta Magazine or Renaissance Technologies. Both places have exceptional people, and constantly produce good results. Rentech has beat the market for the past 30 years. Quanta Magazine has published many good articles that has been on HN's front page and have mentioned in Wired Magazine etc.

djmips 5y ago
Best is subjective.

yuy910616 5y ago

Can anyone comment on Cowen's economic/political view? Last I've heard he's kind of a dying breed of Hayek supporter, but looking at his wikipedia page - it seems like even he has adopted a much more sympathetic view towards bigger government. Not to say anything about libertarian - I'm just curious.

pas 5y ago
I recommend listening to this discussion/interview with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgRUujWZ__o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgRUujWZ__o He talks about "too much regulation is choking the economy" guy, but he really means "lack of equity" (as in immigration is unnecessarily hard, building regulation is insane, etc), FAA regulation on supersonic flight currently hinders innovation (because it's not noise based but speed based).