

Is genius simply the product of hard work? - grellas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703805004575606490403919122.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

======
chesser
> _yet it still fails to account for the impenetrable mystery that enshrouds
> such birds of paradise as Bobby Fischer, who started playing chess at the
> age of 6. Nine years later, he became the U.S. chess champion._

What's the mystery there? Bobby Fischer was completely obsessed with chess and
played and studied it incessantly.

9 years of manic dedication and he "suddenly" got good.

His mother spoke something like 8 languages and his father was a Hungarian
physicist who headed the Theoretical Mechanics section of the Naval Ordnance
Laboratory and was an expert in elasticity and fluid dynamics.

One famous story about his memory:

"One day when he was in Iceland, Fischer called Frederick Olaffson, Iceland's
only Grandmaster. Olaffson's Icelandic-speaking daughter answered the phone
and explained her parents were out and would return at suppertime. Fischer
understood nothing that was said because he did not know the language. But he
listened, apologized and hung up. Later that day Fischer met with another
Icelandic player who spoke English. He explained what had happened and
repeated every Icelandic word he had heard on the phone, imitating the sounds
with perfect inflection. The Icelandic player translated the message word for
word for Fischer."

Despite being prodigiously "intelligent", it still took years of dedication to
get good, and years more to get _really_ good.

Plenty of average people undoubtedly beat him at chess when he was a kid. When
you think about it, it should be obvious that he was _always_ that smart. Just
because you're a kid and don't know anything yet doesn't mean you aren't
_smart_. "Smarts" is not the same as _skill_.

Incidentally, his record as the youngest grandmaster in history lasted for
many years until it was broken by Judit Polgar, whose father was explicitly
running an experiment with his daughters to prove that prodigies are made, not
born. All three daughters became chess experts. He explained that Judit, the
youngest, was the most successful because _she worked the hardest_. She's the
only female ever ranked in the top-10 of the "Men's" ratings list.

Since then, many people have gone on to break the youngest-grandmaster record
at younger and younger ages. I can only assume that if being a classical
composer had as much of a "lobby" as chess (parents pushing their children
into it, reward structures), we'd see more Mozarts as well.

The reason it takes HARD work is because even geniuses aren't that genius. If
you look at the top level of any objectively measurable and well-subscribed
field, there is generally less than a 1% difference between the best, whether
it's sprinting, bike racing, weight lifting, or chess.

Knowledge builds on knowledge and skill builds on skill. If you think of it
like compound interest, a few percent difference between two individuals at
any given moment eventually turns into a huge dividend a decade or three
later.

For chess, if you take two average players rated 1500 each, and one improves
at 2% "interest" and the other at 4% "interest", in 10 years the former player
will be rated in the 1800s (moving from class C to class A), and the latter
will be rated in the 2200s (National Master).

To become a Grandmaster (typically 2500+) in 10 years, that's an "interest"
rate of about 5.3%.

Meanwhile, a super-genius with a 7% compounding rate who puts in 7 years and
then burns out will be stuck at ~2400, International Master level.

Humans occupy a pretty narrow raw talent niche. The best people tend to be
pretty tightly clustered together. I'm not smarter than I was when I was
young, but I have compounded YEARS of knowledge and experience to the point
where I can vastly outperform my younger, smarter self.

~~~
ilitirit
IIRC, one of the reason Judit Polgar is so good at chess is because she uses
the part of her brain that recognizes faces to remember certain board
configurations (ever wonder how people can recognize faces they've seen
briefly before so easily?). Her memory was trained from a very young age, but
I'm not sure if the "rewiring" of her chess memory was intentional, or if it
was just a case of the brain adapting (probably the latter).

They once did an experiment where they sat outside with her and a truck drove
past with a particular chessboard configuration on the side. She glanced at
it, then recreated the entire board in a few seconds. Then another truck drove
past with a different configuration and she couldn't recreate it. She
remembered the first one because it was from a game she'd seen before. She'd
never seen the second one before so she couldn't remember it.

~~~
patrickyeon
I think the story comes from GEB, but I've heard that good chess players (not
even anything-masters) can recreate boards from actual games from memory much
better than non-players, but are no better than non-players when dealing with
randomly arrayed pieces. The theory is that they can abstract out the few
hints they need to put the majority of the board together when it comes from
an actual game, but those abstractions don't exist in a random placement.

As an analogue, you and I can memorize speeches relatively easily in our
native tongues (I would suppose it's fair to say we're domain experts in the
languages we know), but it's not easy at all to memorize and repeat (a) random
strings of sounds, or (b) sentences from languages that don't have any common
base with the languages we know.

~~~
mixu
This is the classic Chase & Simon (1973) article. Similarly, programming skill
has been described as being based on the ability to remember abstract
solutions (programming schemas e.g. Davies, 1994; Détienne & Soloway, 1990;
Soloway, 1986) and applying them. From the perspective of a non-programmer, a
program is just a wall of text. I remember someone did the same basic
experiment with program fragments (real vs. random) and got similar results.

Experts can write the focal elements (e.g. pseudocode) first and then expand
them into a full program. A good example might be the fizzbuzz test, or
generating the permutations of a string, you'll have an idea of what the
problem involves because you've done it before. If you can't visualize the
problem in terms of something familiar, you'll have a hard time taking a top-
down (e.g. memory-recall-based) approach.

------
unculture
This chap, Mr. Teachout, is the drama critic for the WSJ (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Teachout> ), he's also a musician and
librettist. The arts, and arts journalists in particular, have a vested
interest in genius. If we suddenly find that genius isn't that magic "je ne
sais qois" we thought it was for all those years, all that purple prose we
wrote about artists in the past suddenly looks a bit stale.

In truth in the arts you have an almost unrestrained version of the Matthew
effect - early success either through luck or hard work breeds more and more
success. This is more true in drama than music - it is more difficult to tell
a good actor from a bad actor than the equivalent violinists for example.

(Sour grapes alert :-)) I trained as an actor, and I know from my cohort that
the ones who are really successful now weren't objectively any better than
most of their colleagues at the beginning. Their entire careers now rest on
the fact that they had two or three really lucky breaks in a row very early on
- choosing the right speech at the showcase and getting that good agent,
getting a good tv job early on etc. The upshot is that ten years later,
they've been working on their craft constantly and so now ARE objectively
better than the classmates they left behind, no contest. It is extremely
unusual, though not unheard of, for someone who was unsuccessful at the
beginning to go on to develop a high profile career and even then the examples
you read about in the press are probably fabrications or half-truths (the
cliche of the overnight success for example).

I find that arts journalists consistently misrepresent the element of luck.
Perhaps because they don't understand, or it undermines them in some way. I've
never read an article about an actor friend of mine that has told the truth
about how they've come to be successful. It's always something along the lines
of "they always new they were special", or "hard work got me where I am
today". I'm not suggesting that the actor is lying, although I wouldn't blame
them if they did. Your reputation is your career, and if you declare yourself
to be a lucky chancer you might damage it. I've always thought that it is more
likely to be the journalist justifying why we should look up to the
interviewee.

In any case, does anyone here know what happened to Mozart's sister? Perhaps
it was harder back then for a woman to be a composer than it was for men? The
last orchestra I saw was 90% male, so this wouldn't surprise me one bit.

------
katovatzschyn
I read once a thought that sums up genius, intelligence and skill acquirement
well I think, and you probably also think the same- along the lines of:

"IQ, talent, and circumstance define your upper bound. Hard work gets you
there."

~~~
mathgladiator
I think that's fairly accurate.

I think the key is a metric which is just a strange thing we are born with as
I can't exactly explain why I like computers. They are just neat.

Given a metric and enough hard work, a work will be considered genius quality
by someone else. The number of other people is going to be what determines if
someone goes down in the history books as genius.

------
mhb
_In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two kinds
of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a
fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times
better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what
he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different
with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal
complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents
and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done,
the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if
ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly
frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in
which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest
caliber. Hans Bethe, whom [Freeman] Dyson considers to be his teacher, is an
“ordinary genius,”. . . ._ (Quoted from Enigmas of Chance: An Autobiography,
by Mark Kac. Harper and Row. 1985. p. xxv.)

from <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Feynman>

~~~
jodrellblank
It's a nice quote, but it physically must be the case that Feynman was not
doing _magic_ , but was doing thinking with human thought processes, within
the confines of a human brain and all that entails.

We gain nothing by pedestaling it and calling it magic, we gain everything by
trying to work out if it is a process or habitual way of thinking or a fluke
biological rewiring or something else.

If I was the right amounts of different and better in the right directions I
could as easily be Feynman as Bethe. I could never be Gandalf.

~~~
gxs
Feynman was just making the point that there is a point where no matter how
hard your work your little tail off, you will simply be at a disadvantage
compared with someone who has genetic gifts or the like.

This thread is curious because it's treating the nurture vs. nature debate as
if it were some novel concept.

In America, we're taught to believe that if we work hard, we can be anything
we want. This thread largely stinks of people clinging on to this belief, if
only for their own sanity. It's no secret that the HN crowd holds itself in
high regard intellectually and it would be damning to believe otherwise, as
all of a sudden you wouldn't have a shot at being the next Bill Gates or the
next Linus Torvalds or whoever it is you worship, on the basis of your hard
work alone.

This ideal is highly romanticized and is part of our education problem. We
strongly belief EVERYONE should go to college, and EVERYONE is equal, when in
reality, some people would be better suited to work with their hands as a
mechanic than some paper pusher at an insurance company.

In Europe, they are more slanted towards the nature point of view, and this is
reflected in their vocational training in education - ie, everyone isn't born
equal, everyone doesn't have to follow the exact same path for the sake of
appeasing some romantic ideal that we can't prove true either way.

While the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, it's plain foolish to
ignore that some people are just born with an innate talent. If you played
sports, it would be easier for people to wrap their head around this - a 5'5
basketball player will never play starting center in the NBA. It's just the
way it is.

It is part of your responsibility as a human being to find out what those
things are that you are most gifted at and exploit them to their maximum
potential.

~~~
chesser
> _Feynman was just making the point that there is a point where no matter how
> hard your work your little tail off, you will simply be at a disadvantage
> compared with someone who has genetic gifts or the like._

Actually it was Hans Bethe speaking about Feynman, and he didn't indicate that
it was due to genetics. When I see people multi-tabling poker it looks like
magic to _me_ , yet it's just a skill that is developed from years of
practice.

> _a 5'5 basketball player will never play starting center in the NBA._

Neither will a 6'6" player like Michael Jordan. They will play the guard
position. Earl Boykins has been a starting guard for 4 teams, and he is 5'5".
Scored 36 points twice. He has certain advantages against tall, lanky players
such as being able to shoot _under_ them, being able to change direction more
quickly, accelerate more quickly, and pick balls up off the ground more
quickly, including getting under their dribble for a steal.

> _In Europe, they are more slanted towards the nature point of view_

Michael Jordan grew from 5'11" to 6'3" between 10th and 11th grade. None of
his family members are tall. His older brother who he used to practice against
all the time is 5'7".

Even when you can SEE something very easily, you only see how it is, and not
how it _will_ be.

> _This ideal is highly romanticized and is part of our education problem. We
> strongly belief EVERYONE should go to college,_

Actually in the startup world, this is not true at all. Peter Thiel even
started a fund to pay kids to drop out of school and do start-ups instead.

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/27/peter-thiel-drop-out-of-
sch...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/27/peter-thiel-drop-out-of-school/)

> _and EVERYONE is equal_

Equal rights, not equal ability. You should have the right to pursue whatever
interests you.

> _and it would be damning to believe otherwise, as all of a sudden you
> wouldn't have a shot at being the next Bill Gates or the next Linus Torvalds
> or whoever it is you worship, on the basis of your hard work alone._

Who thinks "success" is due to hard work _alone_? There's a big luck factor
that everyone acknowledges, including things like being in the right place at
the right time.

But you can't just "luck into" being an expert programmer or artist; it's not
like winning the lottery.

> _It is part of your responsibility as a human being to find out what those
> things are that you are most gifted at and exploit them to their maximum
> potential._

For all I know, I'm gifted at being a ballerina, and could be the best to ever
don a tutu. But I don't care!

My only responsibility as a human being is to achieve my own enlightenment and
not harm others.

------
nadam
It is really simple:

Theorem:

Genius is talent AND hard work

Proof:

1\. Look at geniuses: all worked hard to achive what they achieved.

2\. Look at a group of persons who are all extremely hard working, successful
and good at what they do. Like researcher mathematicians, or professional
sportsmen. Only a very small minority of them is considered a real genius.
(like Terry Tao or Maradona). Why? Because those guys are not just very hard
working but also exceptionally talented.

~~~
jleyank
While it is true that talent and hard work is a win, talent can be a win on
its own. I think people agree Einstein was a genius, but there's no evidence
he worked hard at anything when young. Perhaps we should be careful re:
definitions, separating insight and genius, favoring the former as more
innate?

~~~
halostatue
Having read one of the more recent biographies, Einstein did work fairly hard
for his insights.

He had a lot of time to think as a patent examiner.

------
NyxWulf
Summarizing the article: "Genius is just hard work? Prove it, you have 10
years to produce genius level work. Any takers?"

On this subject, the best book I've read is talent is overrated. They discuss
this subject in depth and provide a great deal of research and information to
support their claims. _edit_ Oh, and their claim is that there isn't much
empirical evidence that supports the notion of genius or even innate talent at
all.

~~~
Arun2009
I'm yet to read the article, but on this:

> Summarizing the article: "Genius is just hard work? Prove it, you have 10
> years to produce genius level work. Any takers?"

two examples that leap to mind are:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r#Background>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Biography>

Two examples famous in India are:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar#Early_years_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar#Early_years_and_personal_life)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand#Personal_life>

------
btilly
One of the most ironic pieces of good advice on this topic is
[http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-
to...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-
genius-to-do-maths/).

Why is it ironic? Because it is written by
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao>. While nobody will deny how hard he
works, he is also on record as being one of the most amazing math prodigies
ever.

~~~
nadam
I think what he writes is true: one does not have to be a genius to do
mathematics.

But:

\- He says that a reasonable intelligence is needed (I think it is something
like an IQ of at least 120, so most of the population would have no chance.
Come on, I know some guys who suffered very heavily from high school math even
if they tried hard. But certainly a genius level is not needed to do math).

\- Reaching the level of Terry Tao is impossible without being brutally
talented. I have heard it from good, very smart, successful and extremely hard
working (and enthusiastic) mathematicians. Other mathematicians achieved big
things when they were children but Terry Tao consistently was ahead of even
them. (Like winning a bronze medal at the International Mathematical Olimpiad
being 10 years old)

Being a genius is an AND combination: talent and hard work. The 'talent is
overrated' statement is true: most people underestimate hard work. This is
similar to bodybuilding: most people think that steroids alone are enough to
be a body builder champion. No: very lucky genetics AND steroids AND extremely
hard work are needed.

~~~
btilly
I agree. Which is why I called it good advice.

However I still think it ironic to get that advice from someone who clearly
has such extreme levels of raw talent.

------
andreyf
Is anyone else infuriated by the use of vague words like "genius" without a
good metric to measure it?

~~~
tokenadult
In current psychological literature, the term "genius" is developing a
generally accepted definition. Psychologist Dean Keith Simonton is the leading
author on the subject. The basis idea is that a genius is someone who performs
at a level that is reliably superior in a statistical sense (that is, an
"expert" in the terminology of K. Anders Ericsson) AND produces a new paradigm
of performance in the domain of performance.

Comment on the submitted article: the Mozart biographical materials I have
read suggest that Mozart's sister didn't reach Wolfgang's high level of
performance partly because their father really did have a child in whom more
was invested, consistent with sexist attitudes of the time. After edit: I
guess the author of the essay has ten years to learn how to write a well
researched essay on a topic that is well sourced in the standard scientific
literature.

------
astrofinch
How did this article provide any new or useful information?

~~~
jodrellblank
How does your comment?

~~~
Estragon
I usually come to the comments on HN posts first, to assess whether an article
is worth reading. Comments like the grandparent are very helpful to me.

------
powera
I think the most important point that the article leaves out is that 99% of
people don't want to put in those 10000 hours anyhow. Most people can get
really good at most things if they really want it enough.

That said, it's ridiculous to suggest that anyone can be the next Beethoven or
Einstein (or even Bobby Fischer) just from hard work.

~~~
throwAway_29
you are agreeing AND disagreeing at the same time???!

~~~
jimfl
Genius.

------
Homunculiheaded
"Disbelievers in genius are hereby invited to prove their point by sitting
down and creating an equally great work of art. You have until 2020 to comply.
Any takers?"

This is conflating the claim that expertise can be acquired in 10,000 hours
with the claim that genius can. I don't believe anyone is truly claiming the
latter is the case. I'll take him up on the challenge the former though. 5
years ago I knew absolutely nothing about programming. I decided I wanted to
learn. I started spending few hours a day on learning new things, doing
exercises, taking classes and doing projects. I'm far from an expert in the
area now, but I'm absolutely blown away with how far I've come in 5 years. If
I keep it up I'm pretty confident that in 5 more years I'll be there.

The author also seems to miss the real dangers of "the myth of genius", which
should more appropriately be called "the myth of innate talent". I can't tell
you how many people I've heard say "Oh I could never learn X, I'm just not one
of those people who is good at X". One thing I like to point out is that if it
takes you 10 years to be an expert, it probably only takes 2-4 years to
achieve an intermediate level of skill, which is pretty damn useful.

------
albertsun
Even if genius isn't simply the product of hard work, it would still be a
useful lie to convince everyone that it was. Hard work might not be
sufficient, but it's certainly necessary. And even if genius isn't achieved,
you'd still get pretty close with just hard work.

------
cmurphycode
What's the difference? We're substituting having superior intellect with
having the willpower to work hard. It seems weird to say that at first. But
the more I think about it, the more I think there must be a reason why some
people _do_ persevere enough to become "genius" level at something, and some
people never do.

Personally, I think work ethic, along with intellect and charisma, is
something you are partially born with. It's just silly to say that genetics
play no factor: do those with severe mental disabilities just not work hard
enough? Think about it as your genes defining a range: you can be between the
30th and 75th percentile of human prowess. Where you fall in that range is up
to you.

------
istari
"Genius" is 10,000 hours of constant improvement.

Spending 10,000 hours on something is incredibly common. Everyone spends
10,000 hours on multiple things. But we coast. It's what we do by habit. It's
habit itself.

To break our own habits over and over again in order to improve, to get into a
positive feedback loop of ever increasing ability, for 10,000 hours, is
genius.

------
middlegeek
I believe genius and hard work are merely two ingredients into success or
excellence in performing a task.

A person of below average intelligence who has studied chess for years and
years could beat a genius who took up the game a week ago.

------
pshapiro
No, genius doesn't come from just hard work. You can work hard at the wrong
way for a long time and still not get any better.

A genius is someone who sees the world by his own sight. A genius has wisdom
because of that.

On the other hand, someone who learns only from school can't be a genius and
get wisdom from books, he can only be someone with ability through learning,
because he didn't awaken himself and see the principle of the world through
himself.

------
throwAway_29
Is the notion of 10-X programmers, super cool programmers over-rated?

------
known
Genius == DNA + Environment

------
chalimacos
Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in 6 weeks. That's genius.

------
sliverstorm
Do I even have to say it?

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

------
drewse
It can be, or it can not be.

If by "genius" you mean someone who's defined by their actions, then it is
[simply the product of hard work].

Otherwise, if by "genius" you mean someone with the potential to be great,
then it is not [the product of hard work, but rather one's genes].

Both of these interpretations of "genius" are often used, although there is
very little distinction between the two if the "genius" with the potential to
be great lives up to their expectations. On the other hand, those who have the
potential to be great but don't take advantage of their genes are hard to
discover.

Also, the "genius" that -has- potential to be great and -is- great is
technically a genius of both kinds. Something to think about...

