Wow, a lot of these comments seem to misunderstand that this is 95th percentile amongst people who participate, not people who practice actively. The article is mostly correct.
95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
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Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#32More 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.
Pool sizes and opportunity vary. Once you are part of a bobsledder team you are in a limited group where bobsled track time is available. You could already be in the top 200. To be in a top 200 lawyer you would need to beat out a huge pool.
Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#33The caveat is that in any activity you’re disproportionately likely to encounter those who practice that activity the most. Therefore, you could be in the 90th percentile of participants, but below average against those you encounter.
Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#34On lichess, the 95th percentile rating of active participants is 2125. I wonder if this author would agree such a rating "isn't that good"? I think it's pretty darn good.
The whole point of the article is that the average active Lichess user would be 95th percentile of people who know how to play chess.
Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Curious what steps you took to get the most out of your team when some teammates aren't intrinsically motivated? Did you build a sort of incentive structure?
Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#36>But I think it's just the opposite: most people can become (relatively) good at most things. I think this point of view is not only blatantly false but also much more dangerous than most people realize. It sets an unrealistic standard across all disciplines, with a wide range of detrimental effects: 1. People entering majors that they are not qualified for, taking on more debt and failing later than than they otherw…
The article was mostly about things like table tennis and card games, not really careers (since I would consider getting an education "practicing regularly" which the article said it wasn't referring to). Most people who practice can become relatively good at table tennis, drawing, juggling, etc.
Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#37The classic "oh actually that's a 1 in 20 occurrence rate" issue.
"95 percentile" vs "1 in 20" is a good example of how confusing statistics are. First sounds excellent, second sounds like anyone could (try to) do it.
Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Man, that's a really screwed up outlook
I got piped out of Microsoft and Amazon, both cases after years of excellence on my part because my VP lost a fight with another VP.
In my case, I knew that I was a five star engineer in a 3 star company and landed on my feet easily both times. The experience was awful, though, and anyone with an ounce of humility or respect for authority could have been crushed by it easily. Yet here you come, just assuming everyone you come across is a sad loser.
IMO, you and every salaried engineer are someone who's willing to settle for donating 90% of the profits from their labor to shareholders in exchange for a little bit of comfort and an illusion of safety.
Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#39On lichess, the 95th percentile rating of active participants is 2125. I wonder if this author would agree such a rating "isn't that good"? I think it's pretty darn good.
The whole point of the article is that the average active Lichess user would be 95th percentile of people who know how to play chess.
So someone who only knows how to play chess would be considered a participant? Maybe this is what the author intended, I don't know. However, I find this definition of "participant" strange, because it allows us to truthfully say that someone is a participant, even though they don't play chess (they know the rules, but don't play).
Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
No, although the median of the bell curve of ranked players is probably further to the right than the median of the bell curve of unranked players.