This article belies a key assumption that is also the biggest challenge when making such a statement. Distributional assumption - The assumption is that the me

This article belies a key assumption that is also the biggest challenge when making such a statement. Distributional assumption - The assumption is that the mean and std dev of the participating class is in line with the general population. Overwatch and public speaking sneakily satisfy this assumption. Everyone is forced to speak in public at some point, and overwatch is the archetypal 'normie' game of the of the past few years. Dan then moves from these 2 scenarios to programming, where this assumption doesn't work. There are many formal and informal filters involved in making it an employable programmer. (Say complete a BSCS or equivalent experience). There are also supply-demand factors, where the top %ilers are presorting themselves into CS like no other time in history. Landing a FANGesque job straight out of college is already putting you in the 95th percentile, because of sheer number of filters that one person passes through. Other situations with strong filtering include inaccessible games like Dota2 or high barrier of entry sports like climbing. Now, I agree with Dan's title and the contents, but for a different reason. There is perpetual headroom in the pyramid of excellence. Eventually, those better than you at a particular thing go from being a number to a tangible list of names. But, whether that should mean anything is a purely personal decision. The argument that anyone can go beyond x-percetile through deliberate practice is always true until it isn't. That's because we tend to take our personal IQ, resilience, discipline and acumen for granted. So, I would rephrase that as: 'When the distributional assumption holds, 95th percentile would not be considered noteworthy by any institutions or people that the average FANG/HN reader would find worthy of respect.' Doesn't sound as useful with the qualifications. P.S: something something nuance for large scale communication is impossible. Criticizing danluu for one post lends credence to another post of his. Such is life.