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Nobody decides to pursue their pro sports dream out of pragmatism or a career. They do it because its their calling and they don't care about the odds. They kno

Nobody decides to pursue their pro sports dream out of pragmatism or a career. They do it because its their calling and they don't care about the odds. They know that a fractional percentage will achieve the highest highs, and they go forth anyway.

eastbound 2y ago
But Roger Federer was 18 when he first won Roland Garros (French Open). Shouldn’t they quit if they are not going to be at the top?
- spookie 2y ago
  I too should stop programming given I'll never be at a FAANG at this point. /s
  - socksy 2y ago
    Programming is a non-scalable career (in the Talebian sense[1]), like being a lawyer or doctor. The relationship in earnings vs success is much closer to linear, with the most successful programmers getting only about 10x (100x if we'rereally generous, but probably more like 2-4x on average) more than the least. In contrast pro sports are a scalable career, where incomes can scale separately from effort, similar to movie stars, authors and musicians. The relationship is an exponential with the very best earning the lion share of the income of the entire industry, earning literally millions of times more than those at the bottom of the industry. Given a certain amount of effort invested in your career so far, if you know you're middle of the road of a scalable career, and it's becoming less and less likely that you'll hit the top 1 percentile, then I would think that the likelihood that you should perhaps look to change career should be much higher than if you were middle of the road in a non scalable career. [1] https://casnocha.com/2009/03/scalable-vs-non-scalable-careers.html https://casnocha.com/2009/03/scalable-vs-non-scalable-career...
    - j7ake 2y ago
      Starting your own company can make your skills more scalable. The top artists like Taylor Swift have scalable careers mostly because they operate like a corporation.
    - lukas099 2y ago
      It seems like programming is scalable, in that some programs get executed many orders of magnitude more than other programs.
- bharath1097 2y ago
  Federer was 27 when he won his first French open. His first slam was Wimbledon which he won when he was 21. You are thinking of Nadal who won his first French open when he was 18. Also there have been players who won their first slam much later in their careers. Schiavone for example reached her first slam final and won it when she was almost 30.

eastbound 2y ago

But Roger Federer was 18 when he first won Roland Garros (French Open). Shouldn’t they quit if they are not going to be at the top?

spookie 2y ago
I too should stop programming given I'll never be at a FAANG at this point. /s
- socksy 2y ago
  Programming is a non-scalable career (in the Talebian sense[1]), like being a lawyer or doctor. The relationship in earnings vs success is much closer to linear, with the most successful programmers getting only about 10x (100x if we'rereally generous, but probably more like 2-4x on average) more than the least. In contrast pro sports are a scalable career, where incomes can scale separately from effort, similar to movie stars, authors and musicians. The relationship is an exponential with the very best earning the lion share of the income of the entire industry, earning literally millions of times more than those at the bottom of the industry. Given a certain amount of effort invested in your career so far, if you know you're middle of the road of a scalable career, and it's becoming less and less likely that you'll hit the top 1 percentile, then I would think that the likelihood that you should perhaps look to change career should be much higher than if you were middle of the road in a non scalable career. [1] https://casnocha.com/2009/03/scalable-vs-non-scalable-careers.html https://casnocha.com/2009/03/scalable-vs-non-scalable-career...
  - j7ake 2y ago
    Starting your own company can make your skills more scalable. The top artists like Taylor Swift have scalable careers mostly because they operate like a corporation.
  - lukas099 2y ago
    It seems like programming is scalable, in that some programs get executed many orders of magnitude more than other programs.
bharath1097 2y ago
Federer was 27 when he won his first French open. His first slam was Wimbledon which he won when he was 21. You are thinking of Nadal who won his first French open when he was 18. Also there have been players who won their first slam much later in their careers. Schiavone for example reached her first slam final and won it when she was almost 30.