I find your crypto trading examples fairly interesting, and I do feel like they only fit awkwardly with my intuitions—they certainly make me think it’s more complicated.
However, one caveat is that “willing to see the opportunity” and “willing to make radical life changes” don’t sound quite right to me as conditions, or at least like they omit important things. I think that actually both of these things are practice-able abilities rather than just a matter of “willingness” (or perhaps “willingness” improves with practice).
And in the few cases I’m aware of it seems to me the relevant people were world-class excellent at some relevant inputs, in part clearly because did spend significant time “practicing” them.
The point is just that these inputs are broader than “ability to do cryptocurrency trading”. On the other hand, they also don’t fit super neatly into the aptitudes from the OP, though I’d guess the entrepreneurial aptitude would cover a lot of it (even if it’s not emphasized in the description of it).
However, one caveat is that “willing to see the opportunity” and “willing to make radical life changes” don’t sound quite right to me as conditions, or at least like they omit important things.
I agree with this! Narrowly,”chance favors the prepared mind” and being in either quant trading or cryptography (both competitive fields!) before the crypto boom presumably helps you see the smoke ahead of time, and like you some of the people I know in the space were world-class at an adjacent field like finance trading or programming. Though I’m aware of other people who literally did stuff closer to fly a bunch to Korea and skirt the line on capital restrictions, which seems less reliant on raw or trained talent.
Broadly, I agree that both seeing the opportunity (serendipity?) and willingness to act on crazy opportunities are rare skillsets that are somewhat practicable rather than just a pure innate disposition. This is roughly what I mean by
But I think the importance of being world-class here is “just” building a) the general skillset of becoming world-class and b) the mental fortitude, flexibility, etc of willingness to sacrifice other things when the stakes are high enough, rather than either the direct benefits of your expertise or the network advantages of being around other prestigious/high-status/etc. people.
But I also take your point that maybe this is its own skillset (somewhat akin to/a subset of “entrepreneurship”) rather than a general notion of excellence.
Narrowly,”chance favors the prepared mind” and being in either quant trading or cryptography (both competitive fields!) before the crypto boom presumably helps you see the smoke ahead of time, and like you some of the people I know in the space were world-class at an adjacent field like finance trading or programming. Though I’m aware of other people who literally did stuff closer to fly a bunch to Korea and skirt the line on capital restrictions, which seems less reliant on raw or trained talent.
(I agree that having knowledge of or experience in adjacent domains such as finance may be useful. But to be clear, the claim I intended to make was that the ability to do things like “fly a bunch to Korea” is, as you later say, a rare and somewhat practiceable skillset.
Looking back, I think I somehow failed to read your bullet point on “hard work being somewhat transferable” etc. I think the distinction you make there between “doing crunch-time work in less important eras” vs. “steadily climbing towards excellence in very competitive domains” is very on-point, that the crypto examples should make us more bullish on the value of the former relative to the latter, and that my previous comment is off insofar as it can be read as me arguing against this.)
(I agree that having knowledge of or experience in adjacent domains such as finance may be useful. But to be clear, the claim I intended to make was that the ability to do things like “fly a bunch to Korea” is, as you later say, a rare and somewhat practiceable skillset.
Got it!
and that my previous comment is off insofar as it can be read as me arguing against this
Thanks for the clarification! Though I originally read your comment as an extension of my points rather than arguing against them, so no confusion on my end (though of course I’m not the only audience of your comments, so these clarifications may still be helpful).
I find your crypto trading examples fairly interesting, and I do feel like they only fit awkwardly with my intuitions—they certainly make me think it’s more complicated.
However, one caveat is that “willing to see the opportunity” and “willing to make radical life changes” don’t sound quite right to me as conditions, or at least like they omit important things. I think that actually both of these things are practice-able abilities rather than just a matter of “willingness” (or perhaps “willingness” improves with practice).
And in the few cases I’m aware of it seems to me the relevant people were world-class excellent at some relevant inputs, in part clearly because did spend significant time “practicing” them.
The point is just that these inputs are broader than “ability to do cryptocurrency trading”. On the other hand, they also don’t fit super neatly into the aptitudes from the OP, though I’d guess the entrepreneurial aptitude would cover a lot of it (even if it’s not emphasized in the description of it).
I agree with this! Narrowly,”chance favors the prepared mind” and being in either quant trading or cryptography (both competitive fields!) before the crypto boom presumably helps you see the smoke ahead of time, and like you some of the people I know in the space were world-class at an adjacent field like finance trading or programming. Though I’m aware of other people who literally did stuff closer to fly a bunch to Korea and skirt the line on capital restrictions, which seems less reliant on raw or trained talent.
Broadly, I agree that both seeing the opportunity (serendipity?) and willingness to act on crazy opportunities are rare skillsets that are somewhat practicable rather than just a pure innate disposition. This is roughly what I mean by
But I also take your point that maybe this is its own skillset (somewhat akin to/a subset of “entrepreneurship”) rather than a general notion of excellence.
(I agree that having knowledge of or experience in adjacent domains such as finance may be useful. But to be clear, the claim I intended to make was that the ability to do things like “fly a bunch to Korea” is, as you later say, a rare and somewhat practiceable skillset.
Looking back, I think I somehow failed to read your bullet point on “hard work being somewhat transferable” etc. I think the distinction you make there between “doing crunch-time work in less important eras” vs. “steadily climbing towards excellence in very competitive domains” is very on-point, that the crypto examples should make us more bullish on the value of the former relative to the latter, and that my previous comment is off insofar as it can be read as me arguing against this.)
Got it!
Thanks for the clarification! Though I originally read your comment as an extension of my points rather than arguing against them, so no confusion on my end (though of course I’m not the only audience of your comments, so these clarifications may still be helpful).