> Naturally there is room for both, but I have learned a ton from practitioners (for lack of a better work) who are decidedly average compared to Warren Buffett

> Naturally there is room for both, but I have learned a ton from practitioners (for lack of a better work) who are decidedly average compared to Warren Buffett's mentors (or Isaac Newton). That's fair, and it might even lead to the truism that access to a mediocre mentor could actually have better results than reading books by the best mentors. But we must also take into account that different people learn best differently. Me, I've never really gotten much out of the mentor/mentee model, possibly because I've never had a good mentor. But I feel it goes farther than that - even good lectures have problems holding my attention, and for reasons said elsewhere in the comments, I've found well-developed written sources to be immeasurably beneficial to my learning. One thing that strikes me is I wonder if there's any correlation to those who can work well remotely and those who learn better from books. This whole "in-person is always better" smacks of the chauvinism the corporate world suffers from in regards to work sites. That said, yeah, you have to apply and practice eventually. And having someone to imitate or model after, or better yet impart constructive criticism, is invaluable. But there's a whole heck of a lot that can be imparted from reading a book.