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95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

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Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#21

Post by temp8964 »

elil17 wrote: post #5

A video game and public speaking seem like really weird/unusual examples. A ton of people play video games, very few people do it professionally. A ton of people give talks, but it’s usually a small part of their jobs. Being even 50%-ile among professionals for either would certainly be extremely impressive. When I think about normal jobs, which are less competitive fields than professional gaming or speaking, being…

Top 5% of your company is not top 5% of participants, unless your company recruits based on randomness.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#22

Post by xigency »

temp8964 wrote: post #19
xigency wrote: post #17

Admittedly, I only skimmed this. But within the space of video games, I’m not sure Overwatch is a stunning example since it’s generally a casual game. I’ve been playing various iterations of Counter-Strike and StarCraft for decades. Sometimes with deliberate practice, including reading strategies, playing custom maps to practice certain skills, and watching series aimed at improving level of play. And despite the hun…

Top 5% of leaderboard may equal to 99.99% of participants.

Leaderboard may be the wrong term. In StarCraft 2 for instance, there are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters, and Grandmasters leagues. Diamond 1 to GM might include around 5% of the ranked players.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#23

Post by temp8964 »

xigency wrote: post #22
temp8964 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top 5% of leaderboard may equal to 99.99% of participants.

Leaderboard may be the wrong term. In StarCraft 2 for instance, there are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters, and Grandmasters leagues. Diamond 1 to GM might include around 5% of the ranked players.

Ranked players maybe top 10% of all players? Purely guessing.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#24

Post by thisisonthetest »

rr808 wrote: post #14

Trivial to be top 5 percent of the general population at programming Possible to be top 5 percent of the programmers Very difficult to be in the top 5 percent of FANG programmers Nearly impossible to be in the top 5 percent of Google Principal engineers

I would counter with the idea that seniority and programming ability are inversely proportional via The Gervais Principal (mentioned on hn again just recently)

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#25

Post by malaki01 »

xigency wrote: post #17

Admittedly, I only skimmed this. But within the space of video games, I’m not sure Overwatch is a stunning example since it’s generally a casual game. I’ve been playing various iterations of Counter-Strike and StarCraft for decades. Sometimes with deliberate practice, including reading strategies, playing custom maps to practice certain skills, and watching series aimed at improving level of play. And despite the hun…

Skimmed too fast indeed you missed this: “ …I'm also not referring to 95%-ile among people who practice regularly. …” I think anyone in the leaderboard rankings is consciously learning like you. He means 95th-ile among everyone who plays casually.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#26

Post by im3w1l »

xigency wrote: post #17

Admittedly, I only skimmed this. But within the space of video games, I’m not sure Overwatch is a stunning example since it’s generally a casual game. I’ve been playing various iterations of Counter-Strike and StarCraft for decades. Sometimes with deliberate practice, including reading strategies, playing custom maps to practice certain skills, and watching series aimed at improving level of play. And despite the hun…

Counter-strike and StarCraft have existed for way longer than Overwatch and it was even truer in 2020. 95-percentile of a playerbase full of casuals is easier than 95-percentile of a playerbase of hardcore fans that have all been doing it for decades.

In fact that may be a lesson to take away. If you want to be 95 percentile easily, pick a new field. Since you don't have catching up to do, 95-perentile effort will get you there quickly.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#27

Post by solveit »

thisisonthetest wrote: post #24
rr808 wrote: post #14

Trivial to be top 5 percent of the general population at programming Possible to be top 5 percent of the programmers Very difficult to be in the top 5 percent of FANG programmers Nearly impossible to be in the top 5 percent of Google Principal engineers

I would counter with the idea that seniority and programming ability are inversely proportional via The Gervais Principal (mentioned on hn again just recently)

Principal Engineers at Google know their stuff, a viral blogpost notwithstanding.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#29

Post by thetallstick »

lostdog wrote: post #18
rp3 wrote: post #10

More interesting is that reaching the 99.99th percentile is very difficult, and yet completely unremarkable. I love David Foster Wallace’s essay on this subject: “ Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness.” He follows a top 200 and is impressed by how absolutely amazing he is at tennis, but ultimatel…

It's important to choose the right thing to be in the top 0.01 percent of. Being the 200th best bobsledder probably sucks. Being in the top 200 lawyers is probably pretty awesome.

And if you’re in the top, say 1/3, of engineers you’ll make a good living. If you’re in the top 1% of say, chess players, you probably won’t even get tournament invites.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#30

Post by PragmaticPulp »

e4e78a06 wrote: post #12
elil17 wrote: post #5

A video game and public speaking seem like really weird/unusual examples. A ton of people play video games, very few people do it professionally. A ton of people give talks, but it’s usually a small part of their jobs. Being even 50%-ile among professionals for either would certainly be extremely impressive. When I think about normal jobs, which are less competitive fields than professional gaming or speaking, being…

> Being even 50%-ile among professionals for either would certainly be extremely impressive. I think you'd be surprised at how low the bar is. And how people either 1) don't care about actively improving or 2) don't effectively learn from their mistakes. For a lot of people their career is just a way to get paid. As long as they don't get fired that's enough for them. And for other people they never developed a growt…

> For a lot of people their career is just a way to get paid. As long as they don't get fired that's enough for them.

This was one of my hardest earned lessons when I became a manager. Previously I had worked my way into high-performing teams where everybody really cared about doing a good job. I was so surrounded by people with that mindset that I assumed that’s just how everybody in tech operated.

Only later did I realize that I was surrounded by those people because my managers actively selected for those hires and carefully weeded out the people who weren’t interested in anything other than doing the bare minimum to collect a paycheck.

As a hiring manager, the opposite selection bias occurs: The candidate pool is heavily biased toward people who have lost their jobs or are being pushed out as part of a PiP. You end up interviewing a lot of people who really just want to collect a paycheck and be bothered as little as possible with actual work.

Poke around Reddit or even HN and this work minimization mindset is even celebrated by a lot of people. If you’ve been surrounded by high achievers and motivated people who would have chosen programming jobs because that’s what they like to do every day, it can be a shock to work with people who really just hate doing anything that resembles work. Yet they’re out there, in surprisingly large numbers.

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