My impression is that at best the top 3% of people in rich countries in terms of ability (intelligence, work ethic, educational credentials) are able to pursue such high impact options. What I have a less good sense of is whether other people agree with this number.
This seems “right”, but really, I don’t truly know.
One reason I’m uncertain because I don’t know the paths you are envisioning for these people.
Do you have a sense of what paths are available to the 3%, maybe writing out very briefly, say 2 paths that they could reliably succeed in, e.g. we would be comfortable advising them today to work on?
For more context, what I mean is, building on this point:
high impact job options like becoming a grantmaker directing millions of dollars or meaningfully influencing developing world health policy will not be realistic paths.
So while I agree that the top 3% of people have access to these options, my sense is that influencing policy and being top grant makers have this “central planner”-like aspect. We would probably only want a small group of people involved for multiple reasons. I would expect the general class of such roles and even their “support” to be a tiny fraction of the population.
So it seems getting a sense of the roles (or even some much broader process in some ideal world where 3% of people get involved) is useful to answer your question.
This seems “right”, but really, I don’t truly know.
One reason I’m uncertain because I don’t know the paths you are envisioning for these people.
Do you have a sense of what paths are available to the 3%, maybe writing out very briefly, say 2 paths that they could reliably succeed in, e.g. we would be comfortable advising them today to work on?
For more context, what I mean is, building on this point:
So while I agree that the top 3% of people have access to these options, my sense is that influencing policy and being top grant makers have this “central planner”-like aspect. We would probably only want a small group of people involved for multiple reasons. I would expect the general class of such roles and even their “support” to be a tiny fraction of the population.
So it seems getting a sense of the roles (or even some much broader process in some ideal world where 3% of people get involved) is useful to answer your question.