9 ms·

Talent Search versus Talent Development (2019) [pdf]

107 points by JustinSkycak 2y ago

catgary 2y ago
I generally think math competitions do more harm than good for math outreach, especially if only 60(!!) students for a country the size of the US are being given any actual development after the initial tests.
- joe_the_user 2y ago
  I took part in math competitions as part of a math club in High School during the 70s. It was fun, made me think and was a bit of a social outlet. I don't think any one test was that important - we took a bunch of standard and experimental national tests and monthly meetups had their own problems. All that said, my impression is current math clubs and competitions have been taken over by kids just wanting credit for college rather than the kids of my era, who were there 'cause they actually enjoyed math. If the only purpose you can see for math competitions is find a few very talented kids, yeah, well then they would qualify as counter-productive.
  - fn-mote 2y ago
    > my impression is current math clubs and competitions have been taken over by kids just wanting credit for college I work directly with students in this field and my experience is that most are involved for the interest, challenge, or social aspect. If you are involved with “pay to play” programs like AoPS, you probably see more resume-grooming. Nobody I know would continue to donate their time if they perceived it was primarily fluff.
    - joe_the_user 2y ago
      Good Hear!
- Animats 2y ago
  Outside the few hundred top mathematicians, how many advance the field much?
  - downrightmike 2y ago
    Every now and again, a tardy student writes down an impossible to solve problem and solves it because he thought it was just homework.
    - historyforsale 2y ago
      > Every now and again As far as I can tell, this has only happened once, in 1939 [1]. [1]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-problem/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-proble...
  - contravariant 2y ago
    Depends what you mean by advance. If nobody but those few hundred mathematicians was even aware of mathematics then what would be the point?
jasonshen 2y ago
I love the intent behind this letter. So often talented people are just below the "cut off" for whatever opportunity they are seeking, and they see themselves as unworthy. Some may give up, especially if they are young and have not had other forms of recognition. I think this is why YC sends notes to rejected applicants who are in "the top 10%" by whatever standard they are grading folks on, and encourage them to apply again.
- yellow_lead 2y ago
  Is that message from YC truthful? I ask because I've seen a lot of people receiving it, probably a bias towards sharing it if you receive it though.
  - sesm 2y ago
    Assuming Gaussian distribution, how many criteria should be graded, so that 90% of applicants are in top 10% for at least one criterion?
    - lupire 2y ago
      There is only one overall criteria in this case.
  - choppaface 2y ago
    Not to mention that the “top 10%” shifts year-to-year as much or more than HYPS admissions. Talent _development_ requires substantive feedback, or at least substantial visibility into the competition versus a binary outcome. For example, tell Founders if they have the substance or right fidelity but poor sense of timing. (And market timing often in the hands of the VCs anyways). Without real feedback, it’s much closer to a real estate license than an academic math program.
ramesh31 2y ago
The problem with development of talent is that the outcomes can be so variable, and the cost so high when it fails. Identifying the individuals that are worth investing in seems to be the most important skill here, but it's extremely hard to do reliably. Nothing in my career has ever burned worse than spending years of time and effort to develop someone who simply never gets it or gives up.
- catgary 2y ago
  I don’t think there’s any real cost to failure in this case - the worst case scenario is a high school student does a bit more extracurricular mathematics before going into a different field, where they will likely still benefit from that extra mathematical training.
  - ramesh31 2y ago
    The cost being the time and effort of a senior dev to mentor, which ostensibly should pay itself back as an investment over years. Sadly this rarely happens.
    - catgary 2y ago
      Right, but you get that is really nothing like coaching high school math students, right?
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Developing talent in house makes no economic sense if you can find affordable talent already developed somewhere else. Especially since your in house developed talent can bail once they got some talent. I think the bigger point is that in a functioning economy, companies would not have any choice but to train in house, because skilled labour looking for work would not be found in excess.
cheema33 2y ago
During the past 5 years I spent untold hours helping 3 junior devs level up in a very supporting and encouraging environment. In the end, it did not work. The devs were not self driven or motivated enough to make a difference. They would make small incremental improvements, but nothing that allowed them to work on a task independently. They have up too quickly when they ran into a difficult situation or immediately wanted to jump to a subpar solution. We had to let them go. Then we hired an experienced dev who was self driven and the difference is night and day. The senior dev costs slightly more than the junior dev. I don't think I will ever try the "talent development" approach again. The talent needs to do that work itself. If it is unwilling or unable, then so am I.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- stagger87 2y ago
  On reflection, was there anything you would have done or looked for differently in the 3 junior devs? Something you think would actually have changed your outcome? Do you blame yourself in any way for not being able to develop the junior devs? FWIW, I'm currently on this trajectory (as the mentor).
  - flappyeagle 2y ago
    I’ve hired, mentored, developed, and sadly fired more devs than I can count at this point. Activation energy cannot be trained. And that’s the prerequisite for just about everything, especially propensity for improvement. We cannot develop talent in the same way pro sports teams do because there’s not a 50x difference between what we pay and junior or senior dev like there is in the NBA or a 1000x difference like in MLB or Euro soccer The economics don’t support it. That’s the secret reason why schools matter still.
    - JackMorgan 2y ago
      I mean, there probably should be a 50x difference. I've seen a single dev get done the work of 50 average devs many times. A single excellent engineer can produce immense business value. It always baffles me how many places only pay sr engineers 3-5x more.
Animats 2y ago
There are organizations which develop talent in-house. Most military forces work that way. The Union Pacific Railroad is unusually explicit about it. The path to management starts by working in a freight yard in Chicago at 5 AM in a snowstorm.[1] The current CEO of Union Pacific started as a laborer in maintenance of way. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMViWazEYoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMViWazEYoc
- downrightmike 2y ago
  Ans what a shit show every railway is. Amtrack can't run on time because freight trains are too long and would rather block the tracks than pay for a third shift of workers. Shit floats
  - hiddencost 2y ago
    In the US
- zizee 2y ago
  It would be much easier to develop talent in an org if your employees were not allowed to leave on a whim, and you have a lot of availability of unpleasant "grunt" work that can be assigned, that people are not allowed to refuse.
lupire 2y ago
Talent Development happens in AoPS now, via classes, books, and forums. Also there is a network of high-school student-run math contests, with older students coaching junior students. There are several active Discord Servers. There are paid online courses as well as free purses run by students, some of whom are trying to polish their resumes for college apps. We are in a golden age for student mathematics study. What's missing is a strong environment for youth mathematical research. There is a collection of summer camps, but they are too few and expensive.
cousin_it 2y ago
In a world based on talent search, you as a talent can get incontrovertible evidence of what works and what doesn't, by looking at who gets picked. But in a world of talent development, you get that evidence filtered through the mind of the person trying to "develop" you. And speaking as someone who was on the receiving end of attempted "talent development" from someone not very good, I freakin wish they'd gone with talent search. It'd have been more honest and saved everyone a lot of time.
mehulashah 2y ago
It seems that I’m the minority in this thread, but Talent Development has always gotten me much further than search. It’s also the Moneyball approach. People are remarkable when they are put in the right situations in which they can learn. It sets up a win-win situation helping people grow and teams get stronger. It also builds much more loyalty.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I’m not sure that’s really the Moneyball approach though which was more about identifying non-obvious (by traditional metrics) talent.
black_13 2y ago
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107 points by JustinSkycak 2y ago

I generally think math competitions do more harm than good for math outreach, especially if only 60(!!) students for a country the size of the US are being given any actual development after the initial tests.

joe_the_user 2y ago
I took part in math competitions as part of a math club in High School during the 70s. It was fun, made me think and was a bit of a social outlet. I don't think any one test was that important - we took a bunch of standard and experimental national tests and monthly meetups had their own problems. All that said, my impression is current math clubs and competitions have been taken over by kids just wanting credit for college rather than the kids of my era, who were there 'cause they actually enjoyed math. If the only purpose you can see for math competitions is find a few very talented kids, yeah, well then they would qualify as counter-productive.
- fn-mote 2y ago
  > my impression is current math clubs and competitions have been taken over by kids just wanting credit for college I work directly with students in this field and my experience is that most are involved for the interest, challenge, or social aspect. If you are involved with “pay to play” programs like AoPS, you probably see more resume-grooming. Nobody I know would continue to donate their time if they perceived it was primarily fluff.
  - joe_the_user 2y ago
    Good Hear!
Animats 2y ago
Outside the few hundred top mathematicians, how many advance the field much?
- downrightmike 2y ago
  Every now and again, a tardy student writes down an impossible to solve problem and solves it because he thought it was just homework.
  - historyforsale 2y ago
    > Every now and again As far as I can tell, this has only happened once, in 1939 [1]. [1]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-problem/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-proble...
- contravariant 2y ago
  Depends what you mean by advance. If nobody but those few hundred mathematicians was even aware of mathematics then what would be the point?

jasonshen 2y ago

I love the intent behind this letter. So often talented people are just below the "cut off" for whatever opportunity they are seeking, and they see themselves as unworthy. Some may give up, especially if they are young and have not had other forms of recognition. I think this is why YC sends notes to rejected applicants who are in "the top 10%" by whatever standard they are grading folks on, and encourage them to apply again.

yellow_lead 2y ago
Is that message from YC truthful? I ask because I've seen a lot of people receiving it, probably a bias towards sharing it if you receive it though.
- sesm 2y ago
  Assuming Gaussian distribution, how many criteria should be graded, so that 90% of applicants are in top 10% for at least one criterion?
  - lupire 2y ago
    There is only one overall criteria in this case.
- choppaface 2y ago
  Not to mention that the “top 10%” shifts year-to-year as much or more than HYPS admissions. Talent _development_ requires substantive feedback, or at least substantial visibility into the competition versus a binary outcome. For example, tell Founders if they have the substance or right fidelity but poor sense of timing. (And market timing often in the hands of the VCs anyways). Without real feedback, it’s much closer to a real estate license than an academic math program.

ramesh31 2y ago

The problem with development of talent is that the outcomes can be so variable, and the cost so high when it fails. Identifying the individuals that are worth investing in seems to be the most important skill here, but it's extremely hard to do reliably. Nothing in my career has ever burned worse than spending years of time and effort to develop someone who simply never gets it or gives up.

catgary 2y ago
I don’t think there’s any real cost to failure in this case - the worst case scenario is a high school student does a bit more extracurricular mathematics before going into a different field, where they will likely still benefit from that extra mathematical training.
- ramesh31 2y ago
  The cost being the time and effort of a senior dev to mentor, which ostensibly should pay itself back as an investment over years. Sadly this rarely happens.
  - catgary 2y ago
    Right, but you get that is really nothing like coaching high school math students, right?
carlosjobim 2y ago
Developing talent in house makes no economic sense if you can find affordable talent already developed somewhere else. Especially since your in house developed talent can bail once they got some talent. I think the bigger point is that in a functioning economy, companies would not have any choice but to train in house, because skilled labour looking for work would not be found in excess.

cheema33 2y ago

During the past 5 years I spent untold hours helping 3 junior devs level up in a very supporting and encouraging environment. In the end, it did not work. The devs were not self driven or motivated enough to make a difference. They would make small incremental improvements, but nothing that allowed them to work on a task independently. They have up too quickly when they ran into a difficult situation or immediately wanted to jump to a subpar solution. We had to let them go. Then we hired an experienced dev who was self driven and the difference is night and day. The senior dev costs slightly more than the junior dev. I don't think I will ever try the "talent development" approach again. The talent needs to do that work itself. If it is unwilling or unable, then so am I.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
stagger87 2y ago
On reflection, was there anything you would have done or looked for differently in the 3 junior devs? Something you think would actually have changed your outcome? Do you blame yourself in any way for not being able to develop the junior devs? FWIW, I'm currently on this trajectory (as the mentor).
- flappyeagle 2y ago
  I’ve hired, mentored, developed, and sadly fired more devs than I can count at this point. Activation energy cannot be trained. And that’s the prerequisite for just about everything, especially propensity for improvement. We cannot develop talent in the same way pro sports teams do because there’s not a 50x difference between what we pay and junior or senior dev like there is in the NBA or a 1000x difference like in MLB or Euro soccer The economics don’t support it. That’s the secret reason why schools matter still.
  - JackMorgan 2y ago
    I mean, there probably should be a 50x difference. I've seen a single dev get done the work of 50 average devs many times. A single excellent engineer can produce immense business value. It always baffles me how many places only pay sr engineers 3-5x more.

Animats 2y ago

There are organizations which develop talent in-house. Most military forces work that way. The Union Pacific Railroad is unusually explicit about it. The path to management starts by working in a freight yard in Chicago at 5 AM in a snowstorm.[1] The current CEO of Union Pacific started as a laborer in maintenance of way. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMViWazEYoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMViWazEYoc

downrightmike 2y ago
Ans what a shit show every railway is. Amtrack can't run on time because freight trains are too long and would rather block the tracks than pay for a third shift of workers. Shit floats
- hiddencost 2y ago
  In the US
zizee 2y ago
It would be much easier to develop talent in an org if your employees were not allowed to leave on a whim, and you have a lot of availability of unpleasant "grunt" work that can be assigned, that people are not allowed to refuse.

lupire 2y ago

Talent Development happens in AoPS now, via classes, books, and forums. Also there is a network of high-school student-run math contests, with older students coaching junior students. There are several active Discord Servers. There are paid online courses as well as free purses run by students, some of whom are trying to polish their resumes for college apps. We are in a golden age for student mathematics study. What's missing is a strong environment for youth mathematical research. There is a collection of summer camps, but they are too few and expensive.

cousin_it 2y ago

In a world based on talent search, you as a talent can get incontrovertible evidence of what works and what doesn't, by looking at who gets picked. But in a world of talent development, you get that evidence filtered through the mind of the person trying to "develop" you. And speaking as someone who was on the receiving end of attempted "talent development" from someone not very good, I freakin wish they'd gone with talent search. It'd have been more honest and saved everyone a lot of time.

mehulashah 2y ago

It seems that I’m the minority in this thread, but Talent Development has always gotten me much further than search. It’s also the Moneyball approach. People are remarkable when they are put in the right situations in which they can learn. It sets up a win-win situation helping people grow and teams get stronger. It also builds much more loyalty.

ghaff 2y ago
I’m not sure that’s really the Moneyball approach though which was more about identifying non-obvious (by traditional metrics) talent.

black_13 2y ago

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