My point is more “context matters,” even if you’re talking about a specific skill like programming, and that the contexts that generated the examples in this post may be meaningfully different from the contexts that EA organizations are working in.
I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you and Max have written; it’s just a difference of emphasis, especially when it comes to advising people who are making hiring decisions.
I think that’s a good summary, but it’s not only winner-takes-all effects that generate heavy-tailed outcomes.
You can get heavy tailed outcomes if performance is the product of two normally distributed factors (e.g. intelligence x effort).
It can also arise from the other factors that Max lists in another comment (e.g. scalable outputs, complex production).
Luck can also produce heavy tailed outcomes if it amplifies outcomes or is itself heavy-tailed.
My point is more “context matters,” even if you’re talking about a specific skill like programming, and that the contexts that generated the examples in this post may be meaningfully different from the contexts that EA organizations are working in.
I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you and Max have written; it’s just a difference of emphasis, especially when it comes to advising people who are making hiring decisions.