On Talent I observed something fairly early on at Apple, which I didn’t know how to explain then, but I’ve thought a lot about it since. Most things in life have a dynamic range in which [the ratio of] “average” to “best” is at most 2:1. For example, if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver, versus the best taxi cab driver, you’ll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster. And an automobile; what’s the difference between the average car and the best? Maybe 20%? The best CD player versus the average CD player? Maybe 20%? So 2:1 is a big dynamic range for most things in life. Now, in software, and it used to be the case in hardware, the difference between the average software developer and the best is 50:1; maybe even 100:1. Very few things in life are like this, but what I was lucky enough to spend my life doing, which is software, is like this. So I’ve built a lot of my success on finding these truly gifted people, and not settling for “B” and “C” players, but really going for the “A” players. And I found something… I found that when you get enough “A” players together, when you go through the incredible work to find these “A” players, they really like working with each other. Because most have never had the chance to do that before. And they don’t work with “B” and “C” players, so it’s self-policing. They only want to hire “A” players. So you build these pockets of “A” players and it just propagates. Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview Waste as little effort as possible on low competenceA small team of committed coworkersBuild projects around motivated individualsIndividuals matter talent
Waste as little effort as possible on low competence One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence. Peter F. Drucker, Managing Oneself 95%-ile isn't that goodOn Talent talent
95%-ile isn't that good An Article by Dan Luu danluu.com Reaching 95Mistakes at the top Waste as little effort as possible on low competence talent
Shorten the wings The labile tastes of certain decision-makers in a company are often a great burden for designers. Too many feel themselves qualified to pass judgment. And how insensitive, how superficial these judgments often are. Taste, believes Rams, is something that needs to be trained, since the aesthetic decisions at this level in product design are intrinsically bound to the entire form and function of the object. It would be unimaginable, for example, that the management of an aerospace company would ask the designers of a new plane to shorten the wings because they think it would make it look prettier. Sophie Lovell & Dieter Rams, Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible Classical absurdity worktaste