I won't deny genetic predisposition exists. You can have your 10,000 hours and what not but some people are just better than others at $task. I remember a high

I won't deny genetic predisposition exists. You can have your 10,000 hours and what not but some people are just better than others at $task. I remember a high school friend of mine who, after hundreds or thousands of hours of guitar practise, still could not play by ear, something I could do at age five. Yes, there are differences. But I think a great many things can be learned. I actually disagree that all those Google engineers couldn't re-educate, should they have to. They would just have to choose carefully their new vocation. You have (perhaps inadvertently) given a great example in your list of future Google employee vocations: > novelists, journalists, violinists, poets, historians, and editors Think about these careers for a second. - novelist: writing skill, internal subject, long term - journalist: writing skill, external subject, short term - violinist: focus on repetition and incremental improvement - poets: writing skill, internal subject, taste - historian: external subject,long term - editor: writing skill, external subject, taste Do you see what I'm getting at? They're all so different. And I kind of find myself "choosing" one of them myself (I'm a professional programmer). I think intelligent people tend to be able to bend their mind to whatever purpose they desire, with enough effort. Sure, a bit of genetic predisposition helps, but that's just tweaking the dials. You can go in the general direction just with intellect and effort. And I'd wager that the reason you were interested in computers since age 8 was simply because you were exposed to them. If your Dad had been a typesetter for the NYT, could things have turned out differently?