This sounds like a retread of Gladwell's 10,000 hours. Instead of putting the hours in, put in obsession instead. Whether by accident or design, I can imagine it being a flattering message on HN for regulars and for startup founders.
It's wrong. No amount of hours or obsession compensates for lack of raw talent.
Innate ability sets a talent ceiling. Hard work/time/obsession refine and manifest raw talent where it's there, but can't compensate when it isn't. (And a bad environment can cripple it - but that's a different debate.)
The proof is that science, engineering, and math have plenty of very bright, very obsessive, very hard-working people. But they still produce very few no-doubt-about-it outright geniuses.
In fact genius is a rare combination of raw domain talent combined with outstanding creative imagination. The former provides the ability to produce outstanding work, the latter pushes it over the line with the potential for game-changing originality.
Together they can completely transform a domain instead of simply broadening it.
This is not the same as reapplying something already known in a clever and creative way - which is what talented and gifted people do.
Genius pioneers a fundamental change in the understanding of reality and massively expands what humans are capable of imagining and doing within it.
"Innate ability sets a talent ceiling. Hard work/time/obsession refine and manifest raw talent where it's there, but can't compensate when it isn't. (And a bad environment can cripple it - but that's a different debate.)"
Absolutely. I can't stand it when someone says, "if I did it, anybody can." Not only is it wrong; it can be downright abusive.
Yeh but what if you have no obsession to use your talent ? Then what ? What is the point of having amazing talent like singing but instead you get stuck in mc Donalds flipping burgers. Obsession is the key. Obsession & talent combined would be unstoppable.
It's wrong. No amount of hours or obsession compensates for lack of raw talent.
Innate ability sets a talent ceiling. Hard work/time/obsession refine and manifest raw talent where it's there, but can't compensate when it isn't. (And a bad environment can cripple it - but that's a different debate.)
The proof is that science, engineering, and math have plenty of very bright, very obsessive, very hard-working people. But they still produce very few no-doubt-about-it outright geniuses.
In fact genius is a rare combination of raw domain talent combined with outstanding creative imagination. The former provides the ability to produce outstanding work, the latter pushes it over the line with the potential for game-changing originality.
Together they can completely transform a domain instead of simply broadening it.
This is not the same as reapplying something already known in a clever and creative way - which is what talented and gifted people do.
Genius pioneers a fundamental change in the understanding of reality and massively expands what humans are capable of imagining and doing within it.