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You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

forbes.com

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Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#11

Post by kul »

pg wrote: post #3

And yet that's exactly the business we're in. I just stopped in to check Hacker News before getting on with reading applications, which consists of trying to predict who will change the world, and the top story is that one can't. I agree with this essay, but I don't think the title is quite right. All the people who've changed the world have been energetic and determined. So you can to some extent predict by recogniz…

Hmm, I'd guess it's harder than that. Being energetic and determined may be a necessary condition to change the world but it is not a sufficient condition. There are plenty of energetic and determined people who won't change the world.

Though, as far as one can predict, I bet determination is the best indicator we can hope for.

Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#12

Post by DanielBMarkham »

This is good.

There is a role for randomness in every effort, but it needs to be understood. There was another article on the list today about failing a lot to succeed. Dedication and a great team will always overcome, but they will overcome only if they fail quickly and explore the chaos and randomness of the problem domain. At the risk of link-spamming, I wrote in my blog this morning about the role that divergent thinking has on social networks. http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2007/10/do_you_want_m... I think Paul and others make the same point in regards to how it's better to be in the valley than in Deluth -- you can harness the randomness better there.

As hackers and analytical people, we've been brought up to feel like we should take a direct path from point A to point B. But it never works like that in the real world. Good solution-based thinking is divergent, and understands and accepts that you're not following a recipe as much as you're playing a game of chance -- but playing very cleverly!

Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#13

Post by jkush »

pg wrote: post #3

And yet that's exactly the business we're in. I just stopped in to check Hacker News before getting on with reading applications, which consists of trying to predict who will change the world, and the top story is that one can't. I agree with this essay, but I don't think the title is quite right. All the people who've changed the world have been energetic and determined. So you can to some extent predict by recogniz…

For founders, a more inspiring title might be "You can't predict how you'll change the world."

Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#14

Post by pg »

kul wrote: post #11
pg wrote: post #3

And yet that's exactly the business we're in. I just stopped in to check Hacker News before getting on with reading applications, which consists of trying to predict who will change the world, and the top story is that one can't. I agree with this essay, but I don't think the title is quite right. All the people who've changed the world have been energetic and determined. So you can to some extent predict by recogniz…

Hmm, I'd guess it's harder than that. Being energetic and determined may be a necessary condition to change the world but it is not a sufficient condition. There are plenty of energetic and determined people who won't change the world. Though, as far as one can predict, I bet determination is the best indicator we can hope for.

I didn't mean to imply that we can predict perfectly. No one could, since luck is a factor. But we can narrow the field.

Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#15

Post by edw519 »

There were so many times when I started a project with certain intent and the final product was very different from what I had planned. Sometimes the product was simply me - the person who I became through the process was now able to take on many new things.

Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#16

Post by [deleted] »

hga wrote: post #4

"Random tinkering is the path to success." This is of course why we're all using a neighborhood DC power station provided by Edison Electric. Nope, sorry, "random tinkering" will get you only so far. Not so random tinkering can get you farther, it's no accident that about the most popular handgun design in the USA was made by John Browning (the greatest firearms design genius in history) and adopted by the US Army in…

[deleted]

Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#17

Post by alaskamiller »

hga wrote: post #4

"Random tinkering is the path to success." This is of course why we're all using a neighborhood DC power station provided by Edison Electric. Nope, sorry, "random tinkering" will get you only so far. Not so random tinkering can get you farther, it's no accident that about the most popular handgun design in the USA was made by John Browning (the greatest firearms design genius in history) and adopted by the US Army in…

<3 50 cal, slammed the bolt onto my hands a couple of times. Thanks, Browning!

Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#19

Post by mattmccor »

davidw wrote: post #6
pg wrote: post #3

And yet that's exactly the business we're in. I just stopped in to check Hacker News before getting on with reading applications, which consists of trying to predict who will change the world, and the top story is that one can't. I agree with this essay, but I don't think the title is quite right. All the people who've changed the world have been energetic and determined. So you can to some extent predict by recogniz…

You still can't predict just who, out of a reasonably large pool of energetic and determined people, will be the ones with the really big payoffs (for whatever definition of payoff, be it monetary, a big discovery or whatever). You can probably say with some degree of certainty, which people won't do anything big. That might still leave a pretty large group of people, though. Who else thinks it would be a lot of fun…

One paradox is that a failure at the right point in time may give one the motivation they need to succeed.

For example, a person applies to YC. They get rejected and use that as incredible motivation to succeed in spite of that. If they had been selected, would they still have had that motivation?

Re: You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

#20

Post by akkartik »

Alex3917 wrote: post #8
pg wrote: post #3

And yet that's exactly the business we're in. I just stopped in to check Hacker News before getting on with reading applications, which consists of trying to predict who will change the world, and the top story is that one can't. I agree with this essay, but I don't think the title is quite right. All the people who've changed the world have been energetic and determined. So you can to some extent predict by recogniz…

Taleb actually says something similar in his answer to the 2007 Edge question: "The only bad news is that we can't really tell where the good news are going to be about, except that we can locate it in specific locations, those with a high number of trials. More tinkering equals more Black Swans. Go look for the tinkerers." http://edge.org/q2007/q07_5.html#taleb The Forbes article is basically just the edge answer mi…

Trevor Blackwell calls it tweakability. http://tlb.org/busywork.html
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