Years ago I read an article about a math teacher in Hungary, I think, a century or so ago who generated dozens of world class mathematicians. Were those student

Years ago I read an article about a math teacher in Hungary, I think, a century or so ago who generated dozens of world class mathematicians. Were those students special? Yes. Could the math teacher have done the same in another country with other students? Probably. Corporate structures, job roles and freedoms, and management, have a pronounced impact on how productive individual employees are. It's not just the employee's traits themselves. It is true that US culture tends to place responsibility on individuals to manage their lot in life. This should be the case, but I think the US goes overboard. "You're responsible for your performance as an employee, I'm not responsible for what I did to make your performance as an employee easy or difficult. Except, of course, I am responsible for unleashing the talent of the arbitrarily chosen top 10%."