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Nice essay, but backed by these horrible examples: * a group of mediocre architects could have built a better dome in Florence than Brunelleschi * a group of
by brent_noorda 13y ago
Nice essay, but backed by these horrible examples:
* a group of mediocre architects could have built a better dome in Florence than Brunelleschi
* a group of mediocre stock pickers could have outperformed Buffett
* a group of mediocre designers could have built a better computer than Jobs
* a group of mediocre basketball players could have beat Jordan in the NBA finals
* a group of mediocre humanitarians could have had a bigger impact than Schindler
when the truth is:
* Brunelleschi did not lay the 4 million bricks of the dome, a large team did that
* Buffet outperforms the average stock picker by about 13% to 20%, it so happens that in the financial business 13% to 20% is a big deal, while 13% to 20% better is not disruptice startup-level improvements
* Jobs never built a computer, he needed to lord power over a large team to do that
* I believe that a team of 5 mediocre players could easily beat a team of 1 Jordan
* 1 Schindler saved 1200, while 2 million mediocre Nazis killed about 9 billion who they felt where ethnically inferior. In this case, I think the mediocre Nazis had a bigger impact.
So while my heart tells me to believe in the point you're trying to make, that one alpha engineer is worth a ton of mediocres, the examples do not support that point.
- bdehaaff 13y agoThanks for the comments. So you do agree that Brunelleschi lead with his brilliant design and Buffett does dramatically outperform his peers. Jordan never lost a championship and would handily beat 5 mediocre basketball players from the general population -- remember that every player who makes the NBA is an alpha. I edited out the final bullet as it unnecessarily complicates the post.
- brent_noorda 13y agoyes with Brunelleschi's lead (but he still needs a big team), but since Buffet only outperforms by about 15% I wouldn't call that "dramatic" in the context of your post. As for Jordan, I suspect five of me could beat one Michael Jordon, and I suck at basketball. Maybe you could better make your point by avoiding analogies and staying within our hackery field for alpha examples. For example, a single Linus Torvalds in a weekend could put together git, which could then keep thousands of mediocre programmers confused for years :-)
- rdouble 13y agoFive of you would not beat Michael Jordan, even now that he's 50. You're underestimating how much better the best people are than the average. You're really underestimating how much better they are than people who suck.