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Older people are perhaps more likely to be successful. But there is less variance in their outcomes. We learn how to control our variance as we get older. (I'm

Older people are perhaps more likely to be successful. But there is less variance in their outcomes. We learn how to control our variance as we get older. (I'm 29, so I have no idea if I'm "young" or "old" by SV standards.) High-variance life isn't fun unless you hit an early home run. Otherwise, it's stressful and shitty. Experiences like getting fired because you were better than your CTO's-friend manager and made him insecure are pretty damaging, and they lead to self-filtering and variance-reduction as a survival strategy. Give us an R&D environment that doesn't beat the shit out of high-variance people for 20 years, and you'll see a world where experience doesn't reduce variance so sharply, but delivers increases on the whole distribution.

seiji 14y ago
Can we anchor this comment to the top of the discussion? You've eloquently characterized the entire problem and a potential solution. So many current work environments have self defeating dynamics. You're not allowed to be better than your boss. When that gets thrown away (e.g. startups -- you have no boss) everybody can thrive. Well, they can thrive if they haven't been trained over a lifetime to be risk averse due to shitty management.
Surio 14y ago
>> High-variance life isn't fun unless you hit an early home run. Otherwise, it's stressful and shitty. Story of my life! +1 to that!