This phenomenon you mention is interesting in other disciplines and topics. The gradient of power law distributions across many measurable spaces looks the same

This phenomenon you mention is interesting in other disciplines and topics. The gradient of power law distributions across many measurable spaces looks the same. There is a steady, near linear association with “quality” (no matter how you abstract this definition), and then the more exponential gains are typically exceptional instances with more unique circumstances for how they were measured along this portion of the curve. Another widely measured example is income. Most people have jobs with increasing pay commensurate with market demand, but the top have exceptional combinatorial factors involved: e.g. they are BOTH highly skilled AND own a business or have some obscure high risk job, were an inventor of something, receive substantial trust fund income, etc. The more boring way of stating this is… exceptional results are by definition exceptional.