This seems to my first intuition. Find the smartest people possible. They’ll be winners.
So maybe when Google ask interviewees why a manhole cover is round, or Oxbridge ask for a clean sheet of A*s — they’re kind of missing the point?
Smart people can be horrifically stupid. When making decisions, they can be just as stupid as anyone else — but they’re also more confidently stupid — with more of a drive to act on that stupidity.
So is being intelligent useless?
Well not really. You can witness an intellectual horsepower in really smart people. With years of cumulative knowledge and reasoning gains — they ‘just get things’ very quickly.
I was once told a story about
Lord Simon Stevens, the former CEO of NHS England. Someone handed him a scientific paper to read. By the time the lift had reached the 10th floor — he’d read and dissected the whole paper — and picked out three flaws.
Sounds like bullshit (kasme I heard it bro). But if I handed a watch collector a fake Rolex — it’s reasonable they would know as soon as it touched their hand.
So a V8 intellectual engine is beneficial, but doesn’t exist in isolation. As the multiplicative model of intelligence puts it—
“Final success requires a fairly tight combination of several traits—variables expressing the strength of particular traits are in some manner multiplied together to achieve a powerful final effect.”
Talent — Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross
So intelligence is important, up to a point — but to get that juicy multiplicative synergy — what else do you need?