Every time my daughter picks up a new toy to play with, I have an urge to show her the “right way” to do it.

She was sitting on the carpet playing with her new radio, twisting and turning the knobs, putting it in her mouth, turning it around upside down, trying to figure out how to get it to play music. I was about to reach out and tell her, “Here let me show you how to get it to play music.” But then I paused.

Was she really trying to figure out how to get it to play music or was that me projecting the “right outcome” onto her? For her, the joy was not in pressing the right knob to play music. The joy was in the process of figuring out the new toy in her hand, figuring out what the knobs are, and figuring out how the music flow changes when the volume is turned up or down.

In my rush to show her the right way to do something, I was depriving her of this joy. It was a good reminder to me that beauty lies not in the result, but in the process.

And who knows, maybe through her discovery process, she might figure out other ways of using the radio that I wouldn’t have known about. This might be why beginners or outsiders sometimes have an advantage in new industries. They see things from a fresh lens. They don’t know the “right way” to do things. They enjoy learning about the process.

Sometimes this discovery process yields valuable results. Sometimes it doesn’t. But it almost always fills one with joy.

I’m Aastha, and thanks for reading my world of words. I write about education, human creativity, and any other words I bob my head to. I also write a longevity and health newsletter called Live Longer World.

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People are worried that humans will become obsolete in the age of AI. That we’ll lose our jobs and sense of purpose.

I think AI is about to unlock massive amounts of creativity in humans. That creativity, in turn, will create new jobs and activities we can’t even imagine right now.

Humans are inherently creative. Our ability to express this creativity often depends on how much freedom, energy, and time we have.

If we’re constantly struggling to make ends meet, or doing activities that don’t excite us, our creativity naturally dwindles. If AI takes over mundane, unenjoyable tasks, it won’t just free up time, but will also give us back energy. The more pernicious effect of doing unenjoyable work is not the lost time. It’s the depletion of energy which keeps us from tapping into creativity, even for things we love.

Just like the dishwasher saved us hours of cleaning dishes by hand, AI will save us hours of chores no one likes. This can lead to an outburst of creativity.

I’m Aastha, and thanks for reading my world of words. I write about education, human creativity, and any other words I bob my head to. I also write a longevity and health newsletter called Live Longer World.

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For a long time, I used to think that business and art are distinct from one another.

Business to me, seemed to be about being go-go. It epitomized the personality of the startup founder who is in execution mode: running meetings, being loud, responding in 2 minutes, being cut-throat, doing whatever it takes, ignoring all other areas of life, and constantly thinking about work.

Art, on the other hand, is the practice of slowing down, paying attention, noticing the overlooked details, and stopping to savor the roses.

However, now I’m beginning to think that business is more like art. All creation is art. Art is a way of being, a way of doing, a way of taking delight in the creation itself.

The true delight in business comes from the building, from the creation, from the painting of the canvas the way you see it. Not from the rah-rah, the PR, and the ego that typically surrounds business. Good business people are good artists. They delight in the creation itself.

I used to think that when you are running a business there are certain aspects you ‘have’ to do even if you don’t like it - the meetings, sales calls etc. But to someone who is running their business as an artist, these aren’t aspects he doesn’t like. They’re another stroke of the paintbrush. They are painted to complete the painting. The entrepreneur approaches these aspects like an artist - what is the best possible creation I can make?

True artists don’t listen to society. They don’t run companies the way others tell them to or the way other founders do it - following certain schedules, talking a certain way, following ‘best practices’. They listen to themselves, to their own ideas, and to their own artistic inclinations. Because true art and true business is an expression of who you are, not an expression of doing things the way society imposes on you.

This is why when you do a business true to who you are, you don’t care what critics say. You march to your own beat. You are the business. You are it. Genuine is how others describe it. You is how you describe it.

In fact, art is in the daily acts of living - in the everyday movement, in the eating, in the cooking, in the dressing up. It’s all art when done for it’s own sake, for the beauty and purity of it. Art is in the living. The distinction we have about art being transcendental vs. real life being harsh is a false one. It is society’s distinction. Living your life is art - it’s about painting your own life, your own thoughts.

Life is Art, and Art is Life.

I’m Aastha, and thanks for reading my world of words. I write about education, human creativity, and any other words I bob my head to. I also write a longevity and health newsletter called Live Longer World.

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Humans have figured out how to build Chatgpt, self-driving cars, the iPhone, land on the moon, and a lot more. Yet, somehow our smartness has not been translated to better family lives. 40-50% of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce.

If we’re so smart, why can’t we build happy families? This question has been inspired by Adam Mastroianni’s brilliant blog “Why aren’t smart people happier?”

Since the birth of our daughter, I’ve been spending some time thinking about how to build a happy family. There are no easy playbook answers for me to emulate. Adam’s blog articulates why that’s the case. Problems can be classified into two types: well-defined and poorly-defined. The problem-solving abilities we associate with smartness are typically in the well-defined category.

She’s a doctor. “Smart.” He built a car. “Smart.” He’s ranked #1 in chess. “Smart.”

Contrast this with describing someone who built a large happy family. “She raised 4 happy, well-meaning kids and her husband and her have been married for 50 years and counting. The siblings are close to each other, and now the couple have 4 grandkids with whom they spend a lot of time.”

How do we describe such an act of building a happy, joyful family?

“How loving?” “How cute?” “That’s wonderful?” “Smart” is certainly not how we’d describe it.

But perhaps it deserves to be called smart? It certainly doesn’t seem like an easy feat. When 40-50% of marriages end in divorce1 and ~30% of U.S. adults not wanting kids (double from 20 years ago - 14% in 20032), the failure rate at solving this problem seems high to me. Someone who has figured out a solution ought to be honored as smart at the very least.

Building a happy family falls in the category of poorly-defined problems. It’s so personal to each family that blueprints don’t work. Yes, there might be some generalizable principles, but beyond that there is no tried and tested playbook. Does that mean you can’t learn from anyone and you have to figure it out as you go along? No. These problems are age-old problems, and the best place to look is age-old solutions.

Grandmas who’ve raised happy families likely have the best solutions to offer us. We dismiss grandma wisdom as cutesy stuff that we choose to selectively listen to, and then we wonder why our family lives are a mess. Of course, given that a family is a unit of many people, no one person can determine the outcome. For example, if the husband doesn’t choose to cooperate, the wife will fail at her attempt to build a happy family just by herself. However, like in all groups, the conductor matters. The conductor plays a massive role in enabling the orchestra to perform well.

How does the family conductor build a happy family? I don’t know the answer, but the best direction I have for now is to look towards grandmas and age-old wisdom.

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Most successful products and tools make it easier for the customer to do a particular activity. They enable ease. These tools can be broadly categorized into 2 buckets:

1. Tools that make it easier for you to do a particular activity (removing the friction to do a particular activity when the desire to do the activity exists).

2. Tools that make it easier for you to do activities you don’t want to do but have to (i.e. laundry). This way you can focus more on what you want to do.

Another, perhaps simpler way of classifying these tools is through the lens of time.

1. The first category of tools are tools that enable you to spend more time doing an activity.

2. The second category is tools that enable you to spend less time doing an activity.

Category 1: Tools that enable you to spend more time doing an activity

Most successful products these days fall into this category. They’re essentially solving the following problem: How do I enable people to spend more time doing activity X?

This is in cases when the desire to do activity X already exists, but the friction to do it is high. Good products remove the friction and make it easier for you to do the activity. Examples:

• Calm Meditation App: Enabling people to meditate more.

• Healthy, tasty food products: Enabling people to eat healthy.

• Fitness apps / trainer: Enabling people to workout more.

• Substack: Enable more people to write online.

• AI coding: Enable more people to code.

A lot of health products fall into this category. Everyone wants to be healthy, but sometimes it’s too much work for people. Spend time cooking healthy meals vs. buying cheap pizza? How do I even get started with my workouts? Meditating is hard, I don’t know how to begin, and so on. Good health products make it easier for people to be healthy.

Category 1 tools are also capable of expanding the market of users

These tools not only enable people to do the activity more, but they also enable more people to do the activity. In other words, they grow the market of people doing the activity. So they serve 2 functions:

1. Enable people to do the activity more.

2. Enable more people to do the activity.

For example, Calm meditation app not only enabled meditators to meditate more, but it also allowed non-meditators to begin meditating.

Category 2: Tools that enable you to spend less time doing an activity

These are tools that make it easier for you to do your chores. They are solving the following problem: How do I enable people to spend less time doing activity X?

Notice the difference in the problem question. These tools don’t necessarily expand the market of people doing the activity. They’re more solving for reducing the time spent on the activity. Most of these tools fall in the category of solving everyday problems:

• Laundry machines: Save you time such that you don’t have to wash clothes by hand.

• Dishwashers: Same as above but for dishes.

• TurboTax / Online tax sites: Save you time doing your taxes.

• Uber: Allow you to not have to drive, giving you back some time in the car.

• Superhuman: Enables you to send emails faster (most people don’t like email!)

  • Voice mode for emails allows for this too.

• Meal delivery services: Deliver food to you with ease for those who don’t enjoy cooking.

• Grocery apps: Save you a ton of time not having to peruse grocery aisles for food.

• Robots: Waiting for when robots will fold my laundry and run the dishwasher!

• AI coding: Allow developers to let AI do the tedious parts of coding.

There is overlap between the 2 categories

The 2 categories are not exclusive. There is overlap depending on the customer and the need. For example, vibe / AI coding may fall into category 2 for a developer where it saves them time by automating the tedious parts of coding. But it will fall into category 1 for a non-developer where it expands the market by making it easier for more people to “code” their ideas into existence.

It’s also interesting to see tools that start off in one category and because they are so good at removing friction that they quickly enter the other category too. For example, Figma started off in category 2, making it possible for designers to spend less time on the tedious parts of design. But because it made it so much simpler to design, it was adopted by non-designers too who sometimes started doing design mock-ups themselves.

Shopify is another good example. It started off in category 2 enabling drop-shippers to spend less time on the administrative work. Over time, it veered into category 1 too by enabling more people to do drop-shipping!

Enabling ease (less of the activity) → More of the activity

One of the best scenarios for a product is when the product initially makes it easy for someone to do an activity. And the enablement of ease means that the person wants to do more and more of the activity. The tool drives momentum.

Substack is a good example here. Initially, Substack might make it easier for someone to write online. But when this person begins to write online and gets good feedback, they want to write more and more, thereby boosting Substack’s usage and reader base!

Cooking devices like Instapot might also be a good example here. At first, for someone who doesn’t like to cook, they enable the person to do it faster. And then this same person might start to enjoy cooking and use Instapot more and more!

Closing thoughts & Tools to think better

Next time you are launching a product, it might be helpful to ask the question: How is this product going to make someone’s life easier? It will help frame the problem you’re solving for and who the customer is.

Say you’re trying to push a cool social app where you think someone should use it because it will be good for them, it might be time to re-think not from the perspective of whether you think it will be good for them, but if it will make an activity simple for them.

I’ve also been thinking of “tools that allow you to think better.” In a sense many of the tools mentioned above help one think better in an indirect way. My dishwasher gives me time back to think. But what are some tools that directly allow you think better? Substack could be one since it enables me to write more - writing is thinking. My Daylight computer is another one - it lets me read outside which sparks better thinking. What else?

Curious to hear your thoughts on this framing of two types of tools that enable ease.

Aastha

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I was having a conversation with a friend who mentioned “I was reading an article discussing how we should lets kids struggle a bit when they’re playing so they can be ready for the real world.”

Adults want an education system that will prepare kids for the “real world”. Have we stopped to wonder what that means? Is the world that kids inhabit fake then?1

We’ve created this artificial distinction that once you step outside college, then you encounter the real world. This is not only not true, it’s also a bad mindset to raise kids with.

The world kids inhabit is real too

First let’s discuss how the world kids inhabit is equally real. The way kids spend their time is just different from the way adults spend their time. This doesn’t mean their world is not real. This doesn’t mean they’re living in a sheltered bubble. Watch a kid play and struggle to reach a toy, and you will know how real their struggles are. To us adults, it seems so easy, but try to think of it from their perspective. Babies, for example, have to learn to communicate their feelings without knowing how to talk. I’m hungry, how do I tell mom? I’m sleepy, please help me sleep. Or I keep trying to crawl, but fall back down. These are real struggles. Kids are spending a lot of time learning to be slightly more independent day by day. Just because they don’t have jobs that don’t earn money, doesn’t make their lives any less real. In fact, jobs are a very modern phenomenon. In the hunter gatherer days, there were no jobs. You just lived your life and figured out how to feed your family. Hunter gatherers didn’t classify their worlds as real vs. not. I understand that we don’t live ancestral lives, but that doesn’t change the fact that classifying only the adult world as the real world is false.

We are raising low agency kids because of this artificial distinction

Next, let’s discuss why creating this artificial distinction is bad for kids. When you tell kids that everything they’re learning in their childhood years is to prepare them for the real world, you inculcate them with the mindset that whatever they’re doing in their childhood years is not important, since it doesn’t belong to the “real world”. This can have a few different consequences:

1. Kids think they can keep being dependent on their parents till they’re an adult, when in reality they can have very sharp capabilities prior to that. They don’t learn the importance of having high agency - the mindset that you can take charge of your life and get what you want. Look at hunger gatherer kids - they start hunting at the young age of 12 and contributing to the tribe from a much younger age. Perhaps it’s because they haven’t been told that what you’re doing in your childhood days is worthless. And then when a kid steps into the “real world”, they get a shock because all of a sudden they have to change their mindset which is not easy.

2. Kids are made to think that all their play time is worthless. The real world comes with real jobs which can’t be fun cause after all that’s the real world right? In this manner, kids forget their true interests and don’t strive to pursue careers that are in tune with what they truly enjoy. With the education system the way it is, it’s not surprising that ~70% of people2 in the U.S. don’t feel engaged in their jobs.

3. This also breeds them with the mindset that work can’t be fun. If I’m having fun doing something, oh it must not be part of the real world. Childhood was fun, but that wasn’t the real world right? Now I’m a grownup with real responsibilities which means the fun is gone. Yes, being an adult does mean that you have to fend for yourself. But it doesn’t mean that work can’t be play. This artificial distinction of the real world means it barely crosses our minds that work can be play, even though we spend so much of our lives doing it.

We ought to stop considering kids’ worlds as not real. They very much live in the real world. Just because kids spend their time differently from how adults spend their time, does not mean their worlds are not real. Kids too are humans meant to be taken seriously.

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My hand thrusts open the door,

A whiff of cool air flushes my cheeks,

I take a long breath in,

The fresh breeze lightening my lungs.

I step forward a few,

My head tilted down,

Reading the pages of a book.

I look up, and for a few seconds,

My eyes remain locked,

Enchanted by the majestic green mountains.

I wonder if I’m dreaming,

Dreaming of fairyland.

The book is now shut,

The mountains pull me forward,

An old man greets with a smile,

The chirping birds fill my ears.

I look to the right,

The river flowing gently down.

My eye catches a flash of orange,

A bird, a beautiful bird,

Perched at the edge of a branch,

Staring out at the water,

Transfixed just like me.

I encounter a family of ducks,

Huddled by the plants in the water,

The babies waddling behind their Mumma.

I look left,

More mountains, their snow-capped peaks,

Bestowing us with the fullness of the river,

Tall trees with leaves so green,

Glimpses of purple flowers,

Beginning to blossom.

I feel small, I feel like a speck,

The trees, the hills, the flowers,

Enveloping us humans,

With their grandiosity, their beauty,

I happily submit to nature.

I walk down the bridge,

The water is louder,

A big black dog comes running over,

Another happy morning greeting.

A jogging mother,

Pushing her baby’s stroller with one hand,

Crosses my path.

I smile and think,

This would never happen in New York City.

All this while, the birds are singing,

Melodious, harmonious tunes,

Chasing each other,

Wings flapping with gaiety.

Walking further down the river,

I spot the surfers,

Some catching the wave,

Others trying and trying,

A happy bunch they seem.

Two young girls,

Zip past on cycles,

Tennis rackets on shoulders,

Ready for outdoor adventure.

I walk towards home,

The sun’s beginning to crack through the clouds,

It’s rays shining on grass and leaves,

Oh Missoula looks greener than ever!

I enter the door,

My hubby comes towards me,

Our soft lips touch,

A kiss so beautiful.

It dawns on me,

I’m not dreaming of fairyland,

I am in Fairyland.

Aastha

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Smart people are prone to fall into cerebral traps. A cerebral trap is when you seek answers based on over-analysis. Over-analysis is thinking that you can analyze and think your way into every answer, when the real-world is far more complex for our brains to fathom. This can be detrimental in 2 main ways: 1) over-analysis dilutes your thinking 2) over-analysis often takes the place of real-market feedback.

Over-analysis dilutes your thinking

Over-analysis in decision making (whether in business, or otherwise) can lead you to forget the forest for the trees. It causes you to not focus on what truly matters. You can be so focused on the minor details that you forget to look at the bigger picture and understand the big leverage points in the decision you are making. For example, you can analyze a 100 different metrics for your business including login rates, email open rates and so on, but fail to focus on why customer count and revenue are declining, the metrics that are more important. Another example comes from my Private Equity days. Even though there were times when we knew upfront that we wouldn’t invest in the company, we spent hours modeling the details in a vain effort to try and do the deal. This took time, energy, and attention away from the investments that mattered.

Over-analysis also makes you think you are making smart decisions because the work you’ve done, the numbers you’ve presented, the spectacular presentations you’ve made, all signal good analysis that went in. As a result, you are less likely to question your decisions, and fall into the over-confidence trap.

Over-analysis takes the place of real-market feedback

Over-analysis can lead you to make decisions based on this beautiful analysis you’ve done instead of real-market feedback. Say you go through a ton of market trends and customer data, consolidate it into a presentable analysis, and then make your decision on which products to launch or quench based on this analysis. This takes you a 100 hours of work before you actually ship any product. Instead, could you have shipped the product and decided based on market feedback whether to keep it going or the quench it? It wouldn’t just have saved you 100 hours of work, but you’d be getting products to market faster and basing your decision-making off of real-market feedback. On the converse, your analysis could have caused you to not a ship a product which could have been very successful with the market. You’d trick yourself into thinking your way through a decision, instead of being action-biased and getting market feedback. Of course, this only applies in case where the product being shipped is not very capital and time intensive.

Over-analysis gets its feedback from other smart people instead of from real market feedback. Your goal becomes impressing the executives in the room instead of seeking the truth. You present your analysis to win the affirmation of your leadership team who lauds you for the stellar analysis. Everyone thinks they’re working for the customer, whereas they are just keeping a show going internally. This is also where the principal-agent problem comes in. Employees care about impressing their managers and very often the way to impress them is to show the analysis of your work. This way they think you’ve done work and it’s hard to fire someone who is presenting good analysis. Managers, in turn, can hide under the umbrella of sounding smart by presenting analysis to their managers. This analysis charade can keep going with very little being shipped. In reality, the company could have been better off just executing and taking action, instead of making fancy presentations.

The real world is too complex to over intellectualize

Smart people are especially prone to this analysis trap because they have been taught “critical thinking” and the importance of being cerebral at their elite universities1 and MBA programs. These are the intellectual-yet-idiots that Nassim Taleb pokes fun at. People who weren’t taught to over-analyze everything tend to be more scrappy, and action-biased because they’re not in their heads so much.

The real world is too complex to over-intellectualize. This is something that is missed by the elite education system and many corporations.

Over-analysis is not the same as zero thinking

Over-analysis does not mean one shouldn’t think through decisions at all. In fact, in today’s age of leverage, a few good decisions can compound into big winners. So, it’s important to think through those decisions.

Over-analysis merely means not deluding your decision-making by thinking that you can analyze and think your way into every answer, when the real-world is far more complex for our brains to fathom.

It’s also worth noting that certain industries tend to suffer more from over-analysis than others. For example, if you are an entrepreneur, you are better off executing rather than analyzing. But research, investing, and scientific professions certainly benefit from some level of analysis. One has to assess the situation for themselves.

So when the time calls for it, avoid the cerebral trap. Get your feedback from the market, not peers. Think less, do more.

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~5 months ago, I gave birth to an angel. As you can tell from my writing, I love the topic of education, and naturally had many thoughts on how to raise her even before she was born. Homeschooling, tutoring, helping her question ideas, interest-based learning, raising her as a genius - all these ideas floated in my head.

Yet, as I watch her grow and take on a personality of her own, it strikes me that all my ideas are flawed if I can’t practice the most important philosophy that education should rest on: The philosophy of allowing each child (and indeed person) to become who they are.

The most important philosophy in education should be to respect human freedom and flourishing, including that of children. If we can truly honor this, I think we can solve the majority of the problems in education. And I don’t mean it hyperbolically.

Children aren’t pieces of clay

Each person is unique with their own set of ideas. They are their own individual. As much as it’s hard for us to see, this applies to children too. Children aren’t pieces of clay who need to be molded by parents and / or the education system.

It sounds trivial and obvious when put this way, yet it’s notoriously hard to practice, since parents, teachers, and adults are constantly thrusting their own ideas and dreams onto children.

The reason parenting can become a controversial topic is because each parent thinks they have authority over their child and gets to decide how to manage their child’s time and energy. Every parent seems to have some opinion on raising their kids, which could be as well-natured as “I want them to be good humans” to tiger mom parenting, “I want them to go to an Ivy league.”

No individual has “authority” over any other individual. This is the basic premise that parenting and the education system does not understand. The ideas of freedom and liberty are somehow thrown out the door when raising children. Parents fail to respect the human they gave birth to.

Respecting your child still requires parental duties

Respecting your child’s individuality does not mean that parents shun all their duties towards children. They still need to provide for the safety and well-being of their child. When one signs up to be a parent, they sign up for certain duties that come with it - mainly the duty of caring for your child at least till they are able to fend for themselves. However, this duty does not give them the power to control1 their kids or to project their ideas onto their kids.

Marriage is a good analogy. When one marries someone, it comes with certain duties - honesty, loyalty, agreement on finances, child rearing, and so on. You can’t simply do only what you want, you need to honor the bond. However, it doesn’t mean that either spouse controls the other. It’s a bond where you respect each person and you respect the bond.

In raising children, we fail to respect the child. We demand that the child respect us simply because we are older than them. But what about us respecting the child?2

But shouldn’t parents share their knowledge?

Some might question and ask: “As a parent or teacher, I have acquired more knowledge over the years, so shouldn’t I be sharing that with my kids?”

You absolutely should. Discussing your ideas with your kids is not the same as forcing your ideas onto them, the latter of which is what adults try to do when they set rules for kids. The distinction is simple to understand when you replace the parent-child relationship with any adult-adult relationship. As adults, we discuss our ideas with others, but we don’t tend to force them on others, no matter how close the relationship. In any case, trying to force your ideas onto someone doesn’t work - adoption only happens when the person listening to the ideas is receptive to them. In fact, trying to force your ideas onto someone merely ruins the relationship.

Another question that might come up: “Doesn’t this parenting style of letting your child be sound a little negligent?” Quite the contrary. The philosophy of respecting my child is not the same as hands-off parenting. It requires a ton of creativity and problem-solving on my part to help her explore her own set of ideas. It’s far easier for me to manage her time in a manner that would be convenient for me - put her in the school system, add on extracurriculars that I think would be useful, discipline her in ways that are suited to my schedule. But all of these actions would be for the convenience of me as the parent, not because my child wants to go to school or do the activities I throw onto her plate. Instead, giving her the freedom to craft her time the way she wants requires creativity and work for both the parent and the child. But how can I not help her explore this gift of personhood?

To Be One with the Universe

This is not a note criticizing any parent or “parenting philosophy.” I think most parents are super-heroes - caring for a child is not easy. Yet, caring for a child is not the same as projecting our own fantasies and desires onto our child.

I understand where this projection comes from. As a new mom, I too was filled with hopes and fantasies for my little one. Nothing better than the reality of watching her blossom into her own self to squash these desires. I’d hate to quench her own personhood by projecting my ideas onto her.

So, this post is mostly a note to myself - that as I watch my daughter grow, let me not project my desires onto her. I just want her to be who she is. To blossom into her own self. And to give her the freedom and space to be one with the universe. For what’s a greater joy than living a life true to who you are?

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The following essay explores unanswered questions and thoughts I had upon reading the book Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross. While the essay might read as a critique, I write it merely as an open discussion of ideas for the sake of intellectual rigor and curiosity.

Brief Overview of the book

The main question the book seeks to answer is: “How do you find talent with a creative spark?”

The crux of the book is about providing readers with tangible methods for identifying “creative talent”. The authors don’t write about any kind of talent, they specifically write about “creative talent”, and this is important to keep in mind upfront.

They believe that traditional bureaucratic approaches for identifying creative talent are “deadly”, and “are poorly serving the American economy” as it “prizes consensus above all else” and “stamps out individualism.” Hence, we need better ways of identifying such talent and the book seeks to provide some.

Taking a step back – what is “talent with a creative spark” or short for “creative talent”?

What is “talent with a creative spark”? The authors say: “In referring to the creative spark, we mean people who generate new ideas, start new institutions, develop new methods for executing on known products, lead intellectual or charitable movements, or inspire others by their very presence, leadership, and charisma, regardless of the context.”

It’s clear that the authors are not addressing those hiring for non-creative roles. What is not so clear is whether the authors are discussing strategies for identifying creative talent regardless of the specific role vs. identifying creative talent for a specific role.

Identifying talent regardless of the specific role is what I call open-ended creative talent search. Conversely, identifying talent for a specific role is what I call closed-ended creative talent search.

While I think the authors primarily discuss strategies for open-ended creative talent search, they do not make this clear1. As a result, someone reading the book and looking to adopt their strategies to closed ended talent search like hiring a creative person for a specific role (i.e. a product designer) could be misled. This is because most people hiring for creative roles have to take into account role-specific creativity or what I call closed-ended creativity.

Before we dive into the book’s strategies for talent identification and where they fail, let’s take a closer look at the two modes of creative talent search since this distinction is key to the talent identification decisions that should be made.

Open-ended vs. Closed-ended Creative talent search

Filling roles for most creative jobs is a closed-ended creative talent search. You want the most creatively talented person for the specific job at hand. You're not hiring the person to be successful “regardless of context” over their lifespan at the company. You're typically hiring the person to be successful at their specific role. For example, if you identified a creatively talented writer, you wouldn't want them in the role of a designer.

Conversely, open-ended creative talent search is making a bet on the person, regardless of the specific project. You search for creatively talented people and make a bet that they will be successful over the arc of their career. Early-stage startup investing often takes this form as early-stage venture capitalists bet on the founder, not necessarily the idea.

The authors don’t make this distinction between open and closed-ended creativity very clear. Hence, someone applying their tactics to closed-ended creative talent search could be left with a lot of questions.

As part of their work, both Daniel and Tyler are engaged in open-ended creative talent search. Daniel is an early-stage startup investor through his company, Pioneer, and Tyler awards grants to talented individuals through Emergent Ventures. I'm sure they consider the project or the idea the person is working on, but I believe the emphasis is on supporting talented individuals. This might be why they missed the importance of distinguishing between open and closed-ended creative search.

Additionally, both Tyler and Daniel are looking for big wins, and don’t care if there are small mistakes. However, in most closed-ended creative talent search, the mistakes do matter. It’s not as easy to fire a bad talent hire and the costly mistakes can add up.

Having established this distinction between open-ended and closed-ended creative talent search, let's look at how the search and identification process for the two types differ.

Talent identification: Search vs. Search Optimization problem

The authors imply that talent identification is a search and identification problem. However, this is more nuanced. Open-ended creative talent identification is a search problem. But closed-ended creative talent identification is a search-optimization problem.

Unlike open-ended creative talent search which focuses on identifying creatively talented individuals, closed-ended talent search is a two-pronged problem: (1) Find a creatively talented individual (2) Make sure the creative talent aligns with the job at hand. What makes this problem murkier is that these 2 steps cannot be performed independent of each other. The authors merely address strategies for the 1^st step, but it doesn’t help much in a closed-ended search, because you cannot perform the 1st step without keeping the 2^nd step in mind!

For example, if you were looking for a designer and you first found creative individuals, but they all turned out to be writers, it doesn’t help you.

In a closed-ended creative talent search, you could have a creatively talented person who is not a good fit for the job at hand. You don’t want a creatively talented plumber to be doing the role of a writer. Or you don’t want a creatively talented entrepreneur to be a researcher. In fact, I don’t think you’d want Daniel and Tyler to switch jobs. While they’re both creatively talented, and would do fine if they switched roles, perhaps they wouldn’t be doing the best of what they’re capable of. Tyler is a fantastic podcaster and researcher, while Daniel is an entrepreneur and investor.

Once I grasped the distinction between open-ended and closed-ended creative talent search, I realized that applying the book's tactical advice on identifying talent to closed-ended talent search may not be suitable. However, let's take a closer look by diving into some of the specific strategies the authors mention and the questions they raised in me.

Overview of the book’s discussion on Interview Strategies

The book’s most tactical advice on identifying talent is centered on interviews. How to interview, examples of questions to ask, which interview questions to avoid, how to conduct interviews online, how to build trust in interviews etc. are some of the matters discussed.

The authors say that given how important interviews are in assessing a candidate, asking cliched questions on strengths and weaknesses, or questions for which the interviewer has prepared, doesn’t yield much into one’s creative potential. Instead, people should be asking unconventional questions such as:

- What are the open tabs on your browser right now?

- What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from another human?

- What’s something weird or unusual you did early on in life?

- How do you feel you are different from the people at your current company?

- What subreddits, blogs, or online communities do you enjoy?

- What is something esoteric you do?

The authors say that questions such as the first one on the above list hint at people’s “intellectual habits, curiosity, and what a person does in his or her spare time, all at once.”

For example, Tyler’s response to the question “What are the open tabs on your browser right now?” is “his blogging software, two email systems, Twitter, the Google Doc for writing this book, another Google Doc for another writing project, WhatsApp, his calendar, a friend’s blog, an article on quantum computing, his RSS feed, a podcast on chess, an article on the progress in the life sciences, an article on online interviewing, a French radio station [Fip] that plays Jamaican dub, and an article on in-migration to Poland.”

My Questions and Critique on Interviews: Does weirdness translate to talent?

On reading Tyler’s response, my first impression is that he is an interesting person! In fact, it strikes me that most of the questions suggested by Daniel and Tyler are trying to capture signals for how interesting or quirky one is. By posing questions such as what’s something weird one did, or what’s esoteric about them, or how far they’ve been from another human being, implicitly one is searching for what I’d call the “interesting meter” of this person. The underlying premise is that intellectual curiosity translates to creative talent, one which most of us can make some case for.

However, when does this premise fail? When do the questions suggested by Tyler and Daniel mislead one? The authors discussed why traditional bureaucratic questions fail in identifying creative talent. I’m also curious to know the limitations surrounding the tactics suggested by them, and as such I have many questions:

(i)What about interesting curious people who are not creatively talented for the job?

At first glance, it seems true that being interesting would result in creative talent - I know people who are intellectually curious and talented. However, I also know people who are interesting but were not talented at their jobs. I once worked for a startup that had a lot of interesting people – they wrote books, started businesses in their spare time, traveled the world, and had eclectic interests. But this edginess didn’t necessarily translate into talent for their job and providing value to customers. Interesting meter wasn’t a good proxy in this case. Hiring such people only based on how interesting they were without taking into account their creative talent for the specific role they were hired for was a mistake.

How often would you find people who have incredibly interesting answers to the questions posed by the authors, have climbed Mount Everest, know about Japanese music, play the guitar in their spare time etc., but are not creatively talented for the job at hand? People can be creatively talented in some dimensions of their lives, but not in others. The authors assume that a creatively talented person would be creative in every dimension.

I’m interested in knowing: When is one’s interesting meter and intellectual curiosity a good measure of talent? How good of a measure is it? When does it fail? Is it a measure of talent at all? What is the false signal one can get from these questions? Does interesting meter only work for open-ended creative talent search and not closed-ended talent search?

(ii)Are there creative talented people who lack intellectual curiosity?

What about the converse – could you have someone who is extremely talented for the job at hand, but watches trash TV in his spare time, not indicating a high level of intellectual curiosity? Biographies of creative people often amplify how curious such people were in their spare time. Is this why this idea is also magnified in our heads? Are there counter examples? I side with the authors here and am not sure if there are many counter examples, but I’d be curious to know if there are.

(iii)What about people who are so focused on work that they don’t do much in their spare time except perhaps exercise, spend time with family, read?

The authors state in the book that you want to look for people who do interesting things in their spare time, because “personality is revealed on the weekends.” People who deliberately try to practice and get better at a craft everyday show indication of talent. But what if some people are so focused on work that they don’t have many hobbies? What about people who have kids to take care of outside of work which prevents them from inculcating too many interesting side projects? Are such people not talented then? And didn’t Steve Jobs famously focus on Apple (and Pixar) all day and otherwise would sit in his room and think for several hours in his “spare time.” I don’t know if he was perusing content on subreddits and doing side projects on the weekends. Is he just an exception then? Or does talent identification based on side projects only apply to people doing jobs, not those who are entrepreneurs?

Endnotes on Interview

Daniel and Tyler point out why the conventional questions fail, and I would have loved to see some counters to their own arguments – what should the reader be mindful of when deploying these questions? Are there false signals to watch out for? And if someone does seem like a creative person based on their answers to questions, what is the next step in determining whether they are talented for the job at hand?

This brings me to my 2^nd critique of the book.

Work Samples: An error of omission?

Following the advice of Tyler and Daniel would result in one deploying their suggested interview questions, followed by conducting referral interviews. If all checks out, what next? Should you jump to hiring the person?

Is there value in getting the candidate to do work trials? This is an unanswered question and I’m surprised that the book has no mention of work samples.

It strikes me that proof of work should be an important part in identifying talent, or even if it’s not, it’s worth mentioning why that’s the case. However, the book doesn’t state a word about it and as a reader I’m left empty without knowing their research and opinions on this topic.

In fact, I know that Daniel would ask for work samples when hiring. In 2019, I know someone who interviewed for a position at Pioneer (company run by Daniel) and had to do a work sample even before the interview with Daniel. So, I’m intrigued to know if he changed his mind here.

I have many questions here: What is the role of actual work samples in judging talent? Isn’t proof of work a better measure than interview answers? If not, why not? If polished speakers can give off false impressions, aren’t work samples not only harder to manipulate, but also a much better indicator of how the person thinks and produces quality work?

What is IQ measuring?

In Chapter 4 of the book, the authors explore the question “What is Intelligence good for?” They discuss whether IQ tests are a good predictor of talent, if they’re priced into the market already, and when they are useful. I think this discussion is helpful.

However, the premise of these arguments is that IQ tests are a measure of intelligence – the authors speak of intelligence and IQ interchangeably. My question to them here is: Is IQ a measure of intelligence? What does intelligence here signify? It strikes me that IQ is a measure of memory, processing speed, and the ability to do well on such tests. It also seems as if people can get better at IQ tests with practice. In that case, is doing well on IQ tests akin to skill development?

I would have loved to see more discussion on the underlying premise of 1) what IQ tests are really measuring 2) Whether IQ tests are even a good measure of intelligence 3) If IQ tests measure intelligence, what type of intelligence is it?

If creative talent is not transferable across roles, do referral interviews work?

The authors cite the importance of conducting referral interviews before hiring someone, especially for high-level jobs.

However, if creative talent depends on the role you’re doing, this implies that talent is not always transferable across unrelated roles. In this case, asking previous managers about how talented a person is may lead one astray. It’s quite possible that the person was not talented for one job but is extremely talented for another.

Scott Fitzgerald worked at an advertising company for a few months before he devoted his full attention to writing. If the publishers asked the advertising company about how creative Scott was, I don’t know if the answer would be positive. Einstein worked as a patent clerk for years while working on his scientific papers. I don’t know if his boss at the clerk office would give him a recommendation for University. Robert Greene worked 40 odd jobs before his first book assignment which was very successful. I don’t know how many of the employers in his 40 odd jobs would give him references to be an author.

Where background checks are useful is in checking for qualities like hard work, reliability, ethics. These are important learned traits that are transferable across jobs. But what if creative talent is not transferable across many jobs? Do referrals not work in such cases?

Conclusion

I think the book Talent has a lot of useful ideas. I don’t think anyone would disagree that traditional bureaucratic approaches don’t do a good job in creative talent identification. We need to experiment with novel ways of finding creative talent, and this book gives us pieces of the puzzle to help with it.

However, my main question to the authors is: Is their book addressed to only those engaging in open-ended creative talent search, which is a tiny sliver of talent search? Or do they also hope for people engaging in closed-ended creative talent search to apply their strategies? Making this distinction is important as it changes how decisions around talent identification are made. Hence, without a clear distinction, the book raised in me several unanswered questions which I’ve explored in the essay.

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However, few talk about the importance of focus while relaxing. I called it focused relaxation. In fact, focused relaxation is key to engaging in deep focus at work.

The following is a snip of Joe Rogan and Elon Musk talking about the importance of focused relaxation (term coined by me!)

Video snip from 0:52 to ~3:04 (~2 mins)

Joe Rogan: “We were talking about something that I think is really good because people always think that video games are frivolous but what you were saying I think that’s really important is that it’s so difficult that it requires you to only think about that and it can relieve stress.

Elon Musk: “It can take out the rest of the world cause it’s so hard you can only think about that. If I play a video game on extreme difficulty, then I have to concentrate fully on the game and it has a calming effect, so it chills me down. I think you mentioned that many people like you if you play martial arts or you play pool, something that forces you to concentrate fully, it actually has a calming effect, it’s sort of like you’re mentally restoring.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, jiu-jitsu is like that, archery is like that as well. When you’re shooting a bow, there are so many moving things, you have to think only of it, and it cleans the mind.”

Musk is engaging in focused relaxation when playing video games and Rogan is doing the same while doing jiu jitsu or shooting a bow.

For most of us, relaxation means the opposite of focus. We feel tired and just want to give the brain a break. So, we relax by watching TV, scrolling social media, or engaging in frivolous conversations.

I argue that in order to truly relax, we need to focus our brains on a different activity outside work. The key is that the brain needs to be focused to relax. Focused relaxation is the only way to give your brain complete rest from thinking about work.

The conventional way of relaxation

Traditional ways of relaxation such as watching TV don’t fully engage the power of the brain and don’t require our full attention. Hence, during these activities, a part of our mind is engaged in low-level chatter, where thoughts about work keep flooding it. As a result, our brain doesn’t fully disengage from work and get an opportunity to relax.

Focused relaxation

Focused relaxation, on the other hand, gives our brains an opportunity to fully disengage from work. It involves utilizing our brain’s focusing power on an activity outside of work. These are typically activities like playing a sport or a game, cooking, reading, running intensely, engaging in deep focused conversations with people or playing with your kids. Any activity that gives your brain a chance to be fully engaged and blocks out the constant low-level work chatter that floods it, will enable focused relaxation.

By fully engaging in a different activity outside work, we give our brains proper rest.

Rave it out

I believe Silicon Valley has a culture of rave parties. Because of the sensory stimulation at rave, your mind is completely in the moment, taking it away from work thoughts, and enabling focused relaxation. Bars don’t offer the same level of stimulation, making it harder to stop the low-level chatter.

Focused relaxation = Deep focus at work

Focused relaxation allows one to come back to work with a deeper level of focus because we give the brain proper rest. Contrast this with traditional relaxation where no matter how much TV we watch to “relax” our brains, it has the counterintuitive effect of leaving us more tired. In fact, without focused relaxation, it is hard to be fully engaged at work given the brain doesn’t get proper rest. This can potentially disrupt the quality of our decisions.

Focused relaxation = Happiness

There is some literature to show that our brains are happiest when focused and fully engaged in a task. At least anecdotally, most of us recognize the feeling of gloat and joy after a bout of focused work or play.

Does focused relaxation play a large role in success?

There is a large group of professionally successful people who are not just excellent at their work, but also high achievers in at least another hobby such as running. People attribute this to their high achiever tendency – the fact that they can’t help but strive in all areas of their lives. Some of it could be attributed to their innate nature, however, I think some of it has to do with the fact that these people engage in focused relaxation through their hobby. By striving hard at their hobby, they have to take their mind off work in order to focus on the hobby. This way, they give their minds complete rest away from work and come back to work with a fresher mind and better decisions. And in the age of knowledge work, the quality of your decisions determines your success.

The activity outside work does not have to be a hobby. For some, it’s running 2-3 businesses at the same time. So, when one is focused on one business, they can take their mind completely off the other business, such that each time you make decisions about one business, your mind has been fully rested from thinking about it. For example, when Joe Rogan is engaging in comedy or MMA commentary, he is fully focused on those activities, and his mind gets rest from thinking of podcasting. Or when Elon Musk is focused at SpaceX, he gives thoughts about Tesla a break.

Intense focus in all areas does not mean that your brain won’t have the ability to wander and generate new ideas. Our brains are great at wandering so this will happen naturally. In fact, with focused relaxation, you will often approach your work with new ideas that seem to pop out of nowhere.

Capacity to Focus + Reality has no scripts

There are also limits to how much your brain can focus and on what task. Sometimes the best way to relax is to take a nap or go for a walk or do something that doesn’t require deep focus, but nonetheless can shut off your brain. The capacity to focus varies throughout the day, so matching your activity to your focus capacity is important. For example, if writing for me takes up a lot of focus, and I try doing it in the evening after a focused day at work, I won’t be able to given my focus capacity has diminished. So, match your activity to your focus capacity, and this includes your relaxation activity.

Ultimately, reality does not follow scripts. Which means that relaxation too does not have to follow scripts. It’s possible that some days the best way for one to relax might be to just watch TV or binge on ice-cream. However, doing this regularly is not true relaxation. The best relaxation is focused relaxation.

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I was recently at a longevity retreat where a professor gave a talk on creating artificial organs using stem cells. Stem cells are undifferentiated, which means they are not yet specialized for specific organs. One of the challenges in using stem cells for creating specific organs like the kidney is that we need to ensure the stem cells differentiate into kidney cells and not liver cells. The professor spoke of his approach to do so, which was to identify specific genes for kidney cells, ensure each of the kidney genes transcribe into the correct proteins, silence some the other genes, and so on.

As someone without a formal degree in biology, my head was spinning. The approach involved twisting every single gene-protein interaction to get the right combination. I couldn’t help but wonder: “What if we manage to get every single gene combination right and still not get the right organ?” And my question was optimistic to begin with, because getting every gene-protein combination right for specific organs in itself is a complex problem. Other questions flooded my mind: “What if we need to be looking beyond genes? What if genes don’t hold all the keys to organ function and shape? Are we being too narrow-minded by not broadening our thinking beyond genes?”

After Watson and Crick’s discovery of the structure of the DNA, the gene-view has occupied center stage in the realm of biology. By gene-level view, I mean biology’s inclination to herald our genes as the most important code to decipher and solve major questions. From the human genome project to scientists trying to understand every gene-protein interaction, the first thought that crosses our minds when we encounter most biological problems are questions like, “What genes are responsible for it? What genes are impacted by it? What genes can we silence? Was there a mutation in the genes?”

In fact, genes and DNA are held in such importance that the gene language has permeated life outside of biology too. It’s common parlance to speak of a “company’s DNA” or utter statements like “It’s in your genes” or “She must have a genetic gift for it.”

Looking beyond our genes

However, what if the answers don’t lie merely with the genes? What if there is significant code to crack outside the gene level code? What if we should be asking questions outside of genes? And what if there are other elements that might in fact be more important than genes and control our genes?

Let’s take a specific example to show that genes don’t contain all the answers. There is no information in our DNA that tells us how the shape of organs should develop and where in our bodies they should develop. How then do most of us end up with the same set of eyes, nose, ears, organs, and other body parts, and in the same place in proportion to our bodies? Why don’t some of us grow eyes on our hands or ears on our legs? How do our bodies know that where our eyes should be when the DNA contains no information about it? Surely, they must be receiving some other signal that lies outside of the DNA.

I’m not trying to discount the importance of understanding the genetic code. I think they are incredibly important. I also don’t want to suggest that biologists assume genes to be central to everything. They of course look at other factors. But it’s fair to say that genes have been the most dominant vantage point for a lot of biology research, and comparatively far fewer scientists question whether genes should be such a dominating paradigm. However, now a growing number of scientists are beginning to ask more questions outside of genes too.

Bioelectricity: A frontier beyond genes

Bioelectricity is one such realm of biology that dares to look beyond the gene-level view. It’s a fundamentally new view of biology that asks questions about our bioelectric code, i.e. the electricity in our bodies and its significance1.

When most of us familiar with pop-science articles think of electricity in our bodies, we tend to think of electric currents in our brains associated with the firing of neurons. A select few might extend the electric signals in our bodies to muscle cells as well.

However, why have we assumed that neurons and muscles are unique in their potential to pass electric signals? In fact, electric signals run through every cell of our bodies. Bioelectricity is about the study of electric signals in our cells and their significance. Research shows how bioelectricity has enormous significance in our anatomy (the shape our cells take), in wound healing, embryonic development, regeneration, and even in cancer.

I was first introduced to bioelectricity when I interviewed Dr. Michael Levin for Live Longer World. Mike Levin is one of the pioneers of bioelectricity and his lab has done some incredible research showing how bioelectric signals shape morphology (the shape our cells take), regeneration of limbs, and even cancer. Honestly, the first time I interviewed him, I recognized that his work was cool, but never took it seriously beyond that. Once I had more free time, I once again started delving into his research, and am now doing an interview series with him where we speak to significant people in developmental bioelectricity.

Most people I know who are familiar with his work have the same initial reaction as me - they seem fascinated by it, but that’s about it. I think the reason for this is that we don’t quite understand the biophysics that underpins his work. Electricity makes intuitive sense to us when we think of batteries. However, it stops making intuitive sense when we begin to think of our cells as batteries. It sounds more in the realm of woo-woo science. To fully appreciate bioelectricity, perhaps it’s important to grasp the basic fundamentals of the physics behind our electric cells. Once we understand this, it becomes easier to advance to the next stage of taking bioelectricity more seriously.

In my next essay, I’ll discuss the biophysics behind what makes our cells electric. Stay tuned!

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We’ve been stuck on the nature vs. nurture debate for decades. The question at hand is: “Is it nature or nature that leads to success?”

In this essay, I argue that the question is not only misleading, but also leaves out an important third element from the debate, namely creativity.

(A note on terminology: Nature refers to your genes and nurture is a catch-all for knowledge gained through experiences, environment, reading, living etc. You might see me substitute nature for genes and substitute nurture for knowledge.)

It’s time to reframe this question. But before that, it will be helpful to understand some of the flaws in the current nature vs nurture framework:

1. The debate lacks domain specificity: It’s impossible to come to any reasonable hypothesis on the nature vs nurture argument without taking the domain of work into account. The weightage of nature vs nurture differs dramatically across athletics, knowledge work, and other domains. And even within athletics, it differs based on the sport, as I will discuss later.

2. It’s not either or: It’s misleading to frame the question as nature or nurture as it presupposes one or the other. But success depends on both factors. So, it’s a question of how much of it is nature and how much is it nurture.

3. It hasn’t considered other factors outside of nature and nurture: The most important element of success might not in fact be nature or nurture. It could be creativity, something we still don’t understand entirely. While it seems like creativity is dependent on both nature and nurture, it’s also an important third element capable of stand-alone value and worthy of being included in the debate.

4. The role of desire: Sometimes the difference between someone who produces exceptional work and one who doesn’t can simply be the element of desire. One person desired to be highly successful, whereas the other didn’t. The nature vs. nurture debate doesn’t take into account the role of desire.

Accounting for the flaws in the current framework, I would reframe the question as: What is the weightage of nature and nurture, and creativity, and desire in success in a specific domain?

Nature is the only fixed variable in this question as your genes are handed to you at birth. Nurture and creativity are moving variables subject to change. So, if we can pinpoint the role of the fixed variable, we know the rest of it is nurture, creativity, and desire.

Hence, we can further simplify the question to: What is the role of nature / genes in success in a specific domain?

I’m going to look at 4 different domains: 1) Athletics 2) Knowledge work 3) Physical skills work 4) Artistic fields. Within each domain, I’ll briefly look into specific sports, types of work, art etc. I acknowledge that there may be other domains I don’t discuss. And I of course cannot be comprehensive with my examples, but hopefully the ones I provide will be a helpful guide into seeing this debate from a different perspective.

Note that I will focus on domains and activities within domains where there is a big distribution between the average and the best, and where the tasks are not repetitive in nature. For, if there is no concept of being the best in your field, this discussion on success is far less relevant. In other words, I’ll be focused on high leverage activities where the returns are not necessarily correlated with the hours clocked in. (This point will become clear when you read the section on Success in Physical skill domains.)

The Role of Genes in Athletic Domains

Sport is a domain where your physical attributes such as height, weight, muscular built, and body fat can play a big role in success. A swimmer with long arms, a baseball player with perfect eyesight, a runner with narrower hips, a football player with a muscular built, a basketball player taller than 6’5 are at an advantage compared to their peers who are not blessed with these attributes. Of course, different sports require superiority in different physical attributes, but the point is that physical features are important for winning in athletics.

Given that genes play an outsized role in shaping one’s physical features, genes play a critical role in success in athletic domains. However, my statement warrants further investigation.

There are 4 questions I’m going to discuss:

1. What is the role of genes when entering the professional competition pool?

2. What is the role of genes within the professional competition pool?

3. Do genes play a role at all in certain sports?

4. What is the role of creativity in athletics?

Role of genes when entering the competition pool - Genes act as a gating mechanism

Athletics is a competitive battlefield, with winner-takes-all outcomes. A tiny advantage can confer massive returns. If one does not have the genetic advantage needed for success in their sport, they’re often forced out of even participating in the competition pool. For example, if you want to compete in the NBA, and measure below 5’9” in height, the odds are heavily against you1. Similarly, it’s very difficult to enter the NFL if you’re scrawny. And if you want to be a professional runner with a genetically wider hip and weak leg muscles, you’re facing an uphill battle. It’s no coincidence that year after year, the world’s fastest runners are from Kenya. Genetically, their bodies have narrow hips and very strong muscles that are an enormous boost in running.

This is not to say that one can merely rest on their blessed good genes and not train. Training is critical and a person with good genes but poor training won’t get anywhere.

This is also not to say that there are no exceptions to breaking the barriers set by your genes. There have been NBA players who are 5’9” or below, although the number seems to be sitting at only 25 such players. And you can surely strengthen your leg muscles for running. You can also out-train many people with superior genetics. But if you’re trying to compete at the pro level, presumably everyone is working extremely hard, so having superior genes is not just a small advantage, it’s a massive advantage in a domain where everyone is vying for one prize with only one winner.

As such, in sports, genes act as a gating mechanism when one is entering the competition pool.

What is the role of genes within the pro level?

In the first part, we established that one’s superior physical attributes shaped by genes play a critical role in entering the professional athletic leagues. But once you are already an NBA or NFL or pro tennis player, do the same genes continue to confer an unfair advantage or does training matter more? If top physical features are a pre-requisite to entering the pro-competitive arena, then presumably everyone in the pool possesses them, to slightly varying degrees. For example, if near perfect eyesight is an unofficial pre-requisite for being a baseball player, then everyone at the pro level possesses it. And if everyone is physically superior with minor deviations, then no one has a large enough genetic edge. In this case, success would become highly dependent on training, nurture, and desire.

Slight superiority in genes might be helpful, but not enough to win in the pro pool. With the playing field being level on any genetic physical advantage, the highest lever to pull on is training. In fact, a slight weakness in physical attributes might make one work harder to compensate for it, resulting in them surpassing others. There are countless stories of athletes like Michael Jordan and Mike Tyson out-training everyone else in their sport, despite having some weaker physical attributes compared to their peers. While better physical features are likely only an asset, it seems like the difference in success within the competition pool can be largely attributed to nurture.

Do genes play a role at all in certain sports?

There are certain sports where I’m unsure whether physical attributes play a critical role when entering the pro competition pool. Cricket, table tennis, golf are ones that come to mind, although I believe that in golf it’s a disadvantage to be too short (under 5’9”) or too tall (over 6’2”).

Similarly, games like chess, bridge, and poker likely don’t require much physical prowess. I’m not entirely dismissing the role of physical prowess in these sports. I just wonder whether they play an outsized role when one is trying to play at the pro level. Or is success largely attributed to training even when entering the competition pool? However, even if some of these sports do not require physical prowess, there is a strong brain component, some of which could be influenced by genes. I discuss the role of genes in shaping our brains in the section on knowledge work.

(If you know more here, please leave a comment.)

What is the role of creativity in athletics?

Creativity plays a large, often overlooked role, especially in sports which involve interaction with others. Each time a tennis player hits a shot, or a soccer player kicks the ball, or a baseball player takes a swing, they are deploying creativity as to how to play their move, how their opponents would react, how their teammates would react, and how they can ultimately win. These sports are not robotic where you are doing the same thing over and over again. Every second in the game is unique and it takes a lot of creativity to solve each puzzle in your game.

Anyone who watches highlights of the best game moments will instantly recognize the role of creativity in those moments.

What about more “linear” sports like running and swimming which involve more repetitive movements? I suspect creativity plays less of a role here, but its role is not negligent. Any time you make a decision around your training, your energy deployment, or your food, you are deploying creativity.

It’s misleading to only refer to artistic endeavors as creative activities. In reality, most decisions made by humans involve an element of creativity. And athletics is no different. It’s a highly creative discipline in which the creativity gets honed through practice and training.

Athletics is such an intense competitive field for the top 0.01% with winner-takes-all dynamics that the margin for error is very little. You need to have superior physical features, world-class training, desire, and creativity in order to win.

Next, let’s look at the role of genes in knowledge work domains.

The Role of Genes in Knowledge Work Domains

Knowledge work is a catch-all for all disciplines that benefit primarily from better knowledge and creative ideas. Science, investing, business, marketing are all fields of knowledge work. As noted previously, my discussion around knowledge work applies only to fields that benefit from high levels of creativity and leverage on time. For example, my discussion does not apply to jobs where the tasks are mostly repetitive in nature (i.e. cashier)

Commonly, success in creative knowledge work domains is associated with high IQ and hard work. Many people assume that high IQ is the result of a superior brain that is genetically gifted to you – it’s something you are born with. We deem such high IQ folks to be lucky. It is quite possible that IQ is partly genetic but the role of IQ in knowledge work success appears to be more nuanced.

IQ doesn’t explain success

IQ alone does not explain success in knowledge work. If that were the case, why didn’t people who had the same IQ as Newton come up with the theory of gravitation or another such remarkable explanation? It’s because they didn’t have the same knowledge as Newton. So, part of Newton’s differentiation came from understanding and producing the right knowledge. However, merely understanding the right knowledge doesn’t explain the entire picture either. There are plenty of people who understand a lot of physics and math but didn’t come up with unique theories themselves. Producing novel ideas and explanations require another factor, and that is creativity, which played a big role in Newton’s success.

If one were to pithily boil down success in knowledge work to a formula, it could look like:

Exceptional knowledge work = 80% (Creative problem solving + Knowledge) + 10% IQ + 10% social skills / other factors

I don’t know what the right weightage of each of the factors should be, but the reason for the high weightage of creative problem solving and knowledge is that as explained above, without them, you cannot differentiate yourself in this domain. They are essential.

Conversely not having a high IQ perhaps does not preclude you from creative problem solving. Or could it?

Could IQ act as a gating mechanism to creativity?

This brings me to my next set of questions: What if IQ acts as a gating mechanism to creative problem solving? What if having genetically gifted memory and processing speed make it easier for you to absorb and produce the right knowledge and come up with creative ideas? What if the 10% role of IQ plays a role in shaping the 80%? Or put differently, could having a low IQ make it harder for you to problem solve creatively, similar to how a short height precludes you from competing in the NBA?

To better answer this question, I think we should dig deeper into what IQ tests really measure.

IQ tests are a measure of our brain’s memory, processing speed, and the ability to do well on such tests. They aren’t measuring our ability to be creative or produce explanations. They’re testing for how we perform on prescriptive questions.

If IQ is a measure of memory and processing speed, then IQ acting as a gating mechanism to creativity depends on the discipline within knowledge work. It seems to be the case that a lot of scientists like Einstein, Feynman and Newton had high IQs which probably aided them in their work. Mathematicians too have high IQs. Perhaps, because of the complexity of information involved, these fields benefit from the ability to recall and process information fast when coming up with explanations. However, there are other fields like marketing and business that may not need one to have the sharpest memory when being creative. For example, if you work for a media company producing ad campaigns, maybe IQ doesn’t matter so much and it’s your ideas that matter most. 

The ability to recall and process information quickly certainly seems useful, but its utility is domain and situation dependent.

Is creative problem solving genetic then?

I’ve conjectured that success in knowledge work is mostly a result of creative problem solving, with some input from IQ, depending on the domain. In that case, the looming question is: Is creative problem solving a genetic gift? Where does it come from?

The simple answer is that we know very little about creativity and the brain. Research on these areas is still sparse as the brain is very complicated. However, I have some fun conjectures that could help answer the posed question.

The brain can be seen as having a hardware and a software component. The hardware of the brain controls memory and processing speed. IQ tests are a measure of the brain’s hardware. And it’s possible that IQ / brain hardware is genetically determined. So, you are born with a certain hardware / IQ which could be further honed through practice. In fact, if you take the IQ test several times, your score goes up, showing that it can be improved with practice.

The software of the brain is what produces knowledge, explanations, and creativity. Some people call it the mind. It’s not clear that the software is shaped through genetics. There are many examples of exceptional creative problem solving by people whose ancestors didn’t do any such exceptional work. It’s more likely the case that the software is universal to every human, barring brain disorders. Every human is capable of producing good explanations and being creative. And every human is creative on a daily basis, even when they’re problem solving seemingly basic questions such as what they should eat for dinner. They’re usually exercising some level of creativity to problem solve. And given that the software is most instrumental in producing exceptional knowledge work, it’s comforting and positive news to know that every human is capable of it.

Summary Conclusion: Role of Genes in Knowledge Work Domains

Success in knowledge work cannot be entirely explained by IQ. If IQ was the biggest determinant, then how do we explain why people with the same IQ as Newton or other such scientists didn’t make remarkable discoveries in their fields? The bigger contributing factors to success are producing the right knowledge and creative problem solving. However, an open question remains: Could IQ act as a gating mechanism to problem solving creatively?

It’s worth noting that I see IQ as a measure of the brain’s memory and processing speed, which I call the brain’s hardware. The brain’s software is what uses creativity to produce knowledge and good explanations. While the hardware might be genetically determined, it seems to be the case that the software is universal to all humans. However, coming back to the open question: Could having a high IQ make it easier for one to creatively problem solve? In other words, does better hardware make it easier to hone our brain software? Perhaps the answer to these questions depends on the domain of knowledge work.

It is quite possible that IQ acts as a gating mechanism in highly scientific and technical disciplines, which benefit from better memory and processing speed. That is, if you want to be successful in such disciplines, you might need high IQ and produce the right knowledge. But, my conjecture is that IQ / hardware of our brain plays a much less role than people assume. IQ is overrated whereas knowledge and creativity are underrated. No amount of IQ will bring you success if you don’t produce good creative explanations.

The Role of Genes in Artistic Domains

By artistic domains, I mean art, music, dance etc. On the surface, it seems to me like genes shouldn’t matter much. Success is about hard work, practice, polishing your skills through training, and creativity of course. There are plenty of painters and musicians, for example, who didn’t have previous generations of artistic talent running in their families. And many of them state how anyone can become a better artist or musician through practice.

I think that is largely true, but I also wonder: Could there perhaps be musical genes or art genes that predispose you to artistic fields?

I ask this question because success in artistic domains seems more akin to success in athletic domains. It’s not pure knowledge work being done by the software in our brains, it’s a lot of skill training which may or may not be aided by “artistic genes.”

My conjecture is that it is possible there exist artistic genes, but perhaps they don’t play such a dominant role as genes in athletics do. If that’s the case, most of success in artistic domains can be attributed to training and creativity.

(If you have any conjectures here, I’d love to hear.)

The Role of Genes in Physical Skill Domains

I would bucket jobs such as electrical, plumbing, construction, truck driving, farming and other such blue-collar jobs under physical skill domains. I recognize that this is a broad category and could be further sub-divided, however for the purpose of simplicity, we’ll lump them together.

My conjecture is that genes don’t matter much in this domain, and most of success is determined by nurture, creativity, and desire.

IQ matters to the extent that it has a sorting mechanism. My guess is that if you have a high IQ you won’t select into these domains or won’t stick for very long. So, while it may be controversial to say so, my thought is that most people selecting into these domains don’t have exceptionally high IQs. Other than IQ, to the extent that IQ is genetically determined, I think genes matter little in these jobs.

While your physical strength does matter and some of it could be genetically determined, you don’t need to have the physical prowess of an athlete to perform exceptionally in this domain. You can build up the necessary physical strength through training.   

Many of these domains have apprenticeships and skill-based training is an important aspect of doing well. However, could nurture play an outsized role in success? Isn’t there a cap on how much nurture can contribute to success? For example, if you have 2 truck drivers, and one has done 10,000 hours on the road, whereas the 2^nd has done only 5,000 hours on the road during the same time period, is the 1^st one a vastly better driver? I don’t think so. And given the repetitive nature of some of these tasks, more practice beyond a certain time doesn’t necessarily result in better performance.

It’s worth noting that most of these jobs are low leverage, and there is not a big distribution between the average and the best. These are domains where it’s even hard to answer the question: What does it mean to be the best truck driver or the best farmer or the best plumber? Even if there was a concept of the best truck driver in the world, I don’t think he’d be significantly better than the average. However, even if he was, how would he be rewarded for it?

As a result, in physical skill domains nurture plays a “minimum effective” role to get you started. Unlike the high-leverage activities within knowledge work and athletics where nurture has an outsized impact, here it’s needed to get you proficient, but beyond that it may not necessarily contribute to exceptional success.

So, what can contribute to exceptional success? Creativity. A truck driver who deploys creativity to start his own business or perhaps create content teaching people about trucking skills, or decides to use his knowledge to invest in trucking businesses, can now begin to use leverage to his advantage, and attain outsized returns on his time. But then, he is no longer a truck driver, and has branched into being an entrepreneur.

To summarize, my guess is that genes play a negligible role except as a sorting mechanism, nurture plays a minimum effective role to get you proficient, and creativity plays an outsized role to give you a shot at earning high rewards and branch into work that is higher leverage.

(Note: I have barely any personal experience working in these domains, so if I’m wrong, please let me know.)

The Underappreciated role of Creativity

Creativity plays such an important role in all domains. Whether it’s hitting shots on the tennis court, or coming up with a new product idea for your business, or the next Beatle’s song, or the theory of relativity, or finding a novel way to do the electrical wiring in the house, none of these would be possible without creativity. Yet, it baffles me how this very important element does not feature in the nature vs. nurture debate. No amount of nature and nurture will enable one to do exceptional work in their field without the spark of creative ideas. The good news is that all humans are creative and capable of producing ideas. The bad news is that we understand very little about this phenomenon of creativity. The little we know is that it’s ignited with free time and lack of coercion.

The Role of desire

Similar to creativity, desire is an element that doesn’t get talked about much. It’s universal in anyone who did exceptional work - they wanted to do it! Like I said earlier, sometimes the difference in levels of exceptional work can be attributed to desire. It’s impossible to train hard for a sport, or write great essays, or solve the problem of gravity, or open your trucking business without a desire to do so. You have to care and desire to solve these problems. The reason I haven’t discussed desire separately under each domain is because it’s table stakes and a universal element for success. You have to want to perform well and solve problems in whatever it is you’re doing.

Revisiting the debate

I hope you can now see why the nature vs. nurture debate is flawed – the degree of nature and nurture is not only domain dependent but it also misses the very important role of creativity. Hopefully, my essay makes you think differently about the nature vs. nurture debate and fuels more nuanced discussions around it. I’ll sign off with re-stating my reframing of the question:

What is the weightage of nature and nurture, and creativity and desire in success in athletic vs. knowledge work vs. artistic domains?

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Read Part 1 on the Genius of Peter Thiel in attacking the Ivy Leagues and high school dropouts bursting the college gospel.

The Purpose of College (is not learning?)

I know a girl who graduated from Wharton, University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Finance. She was a diligent student with a strong penchant for learning, which landed her a job at a multi-billion-dollar investment firm right after graduation.

On the first day at her job, she asked her manager whether they used CAPM, a calculated risk-adjusted interest rate to discount the cash flows. The concept had been used in all her Finance classes.

“CAPM?! To hell with that, we use none of those academic concepts here!” replied her manager.

And this was the poor academic soul’s first step towards unlearning her Wharton education. Alas, the markets in the real world don’t work like the markets in theory. As they say, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”

This student is me. Starry-eyed and fresh-off-the-boat from India, the Ivy League education was my foray into the American dream.

For four years, I scrambled to soak in as much as I could from classes at supposedly the best Business school. I even audited classes just to learn, only to realize too late that learning in college often translates to academic theories with little practical consequence. What’s worse is that the academic knowledge was not only useless, but I also had to spend time unlearning it! So much for the best Business school.

However, most students are more aware than I was back then. They recognize that while college might want us to believe it’s a mecca of learning (a trap I fell into!), and one that molds the youth into “critical thinkers”, it’s an exaggeration to say the least. In the age of books and online learning, students recognize that there isn’t much learning happening in college classrooms, especially for non-science disciplines. And teaching critical thinking is paradoxical if the academic mental models themselves are flawed!

Why then do students continue to go to college? There are social and other reasons, but the biggest reason is to get the stamp of “college graduate,” a stamp that gets them credentialed for a job and confers them with some prestige.

Pay and Prestige conferred by the University Degree

There are predominantly two big reasons why students choose to go to college: Pay and Prestige. On average, a University degree gets students a higher-paying job than they would otherwise get. Prestige is the status bestowed on University graduates. However, the degree to which status matters depends on the University one attends. Going to an Ivy League confers a large amount of status and plays a big factor in why students go to these Universities. But the further you get in rankings from the Ivy Leagues, the status drops and plays a smaller factor into the decision making of students. As a result, for someone going to a top University, prestige plays a significantly larger role in the decision making. However, for someone going to a lower-ROI1University, getting higher pay plays a larger role in the decision to go to college.

“Higher education” before University

Before Universities were established, the transition from childhood to the workplace was laden with apprenticeships, and there was no concept of '“higher education.” A 14 or even 12 year old boy would apprentice at a trading shop or factory for example, before being employed full-time. Rockefeller, Amschel Rothschild, Da Vinci, all followed this path.

Apprenticeships are synonymous with working on the job, with your manager acting as a mentor and actively training you for a certain period of time. They are the prototypical example of “learning on the job.”

When colleges started being established, college became a gate between school and work. Instead of directly learning on the job through an apprenticeship, you first went to get educated before you worked. Soon, college became the norm for most smart students, leading to a boost in the pay and prestige conferred by the University degree.

However, for the first time in a decade, college enrolment declined in 2021. With Covid, students started awakening to the fact that they weren’t learning much while at the same time incurring massive student debt.

The Student Debt Crisis and the beginnings of an awakening

Bryan Caplan, author of the book The Case Against Education suggests how 80% of the value of a college degree is signaling to employers that you can conform, you’re conscientious to finish the degree, and you’re smart. He suggests that only 20% of the value is learning useful skills. However, because of the signaling function of the college degree, someone who goes to University earns more on average in white-collar jobs than one with just a high school diploma. A higher pay is desirable but at what cost? Inflated college tuition is negating many of the benefits of higher pay and eating away at the returns to the college degree.

The biggest criticism hurled at University is their skyrocketing tuition, and rightly so. As of 2022, student debt is $1.76 trillion. And as of 2021, 34% of 18-24 year-olds who aren’t currently enrolled in college say they can’t afford it; 29% say it’s a waste of money.2

In 1980, the price to attend a four-year college full-time was $10,231 annually—including tuition, fees, room and board, and adjusted for inflation. By 2019-20, the total price increased to $28,775. That’s a 180% increase.3

It would have been another matter if the higher tuition translated to higher pay as well. However, the average graduate salary for bachelors degree hasn’t budged since 1990. It was $62,000 then and is $62,000 as of 2023, adjusted for inflation.4

Part of the reason for poor returns to the college degree is a phenomenon known as degree inflation. This means that an increasing number of jobs require a college degree, even for jobs that don’t necessarily require college level skills. As a result, students are paying high tuition to obtain a college degree but are often finding themselves in jobs where they are overqualified and undercompensated. It is little wonder that students are saddled with loans, which on average take a little over 20 years to be repaid, and in many cases longer. In 1970, college graduates had on average of $1,070 in loans compared to $31,000 today.5

Paying high prices, taking on debt, not learning much, and not having salaries commensurate with the loans taken, results in a low return on investment (ROI) for many students. They have awoken to this. Enrollment rates have dropped, confidence in universities has plummeted, graduation rates are on the decline, and universities are shutting down. Since 2004, 861 colleges have shut down, with the number of closures increasing since 2014.6

In 2021, college enrollment at 38.1% was the lowest it had been since 2006. While the enrolment increased to 39% in 2022, the percent is still low compared to previous decades.7 Further, according to a Gallup survey, Americans’ confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, sharply lower than in two prior readings in 2015 (57%) and 2018 (48%).

Students are voting with their feet and recognizing that it’s not worth their money and time to enroll in many of the low ROI universities. Many of these students are now seeking alternatives to colleges that would enable them to earn higher pay without a debt burden.

Let’s take a look at some of these alternatives.8

The Attack by Bootcamps: Can we solve for high-paying jobs without student debt?

We’ve established that for the majority of students not attending prestigious Universities, the main purpose of college is to get a high-paying job, along with additional career certainty. We also know that students don’t want to incur massive student debt in the process of obtaining a degree.

Entrepreneurs recognized this dilemma and pondered: Could we create an alternative credential that teaches students job skills and gives them access to well-paying jobs without going through 4 years of college and incurring massive student debt? As college was becoming unaffordable, jobs for software engineering were becoming high in demand. This was an opportune time for the emergence of coding bootcamps, institutions which provide students with coding skills in a few months to a year and place them at high-paying software engineering jobs. No college degree required.

The promise of coding bootcamps is to compress job-ready skills in 4-12 months instead of 4 years, with a focus on teaching you the skills needed for the job. Over the years, bootcamps have evolved to cover areas outside coding like business, nursing, product management, healthcare workers etc.

Although bootcamps have gained popularity, their student body is still a tiny fraction compared to college graduates. In 2022, 58,756 students graduated from a tech bootcamp in the U.S. compared to ~2 million students with a 4-year bachelor’s degree from college. However, bootcamps have seen a surge in growth post COVID, when the bootcamp market grew ~32% from 2020 to 2021, and 25% the following year.9

Despite the boost, bootcamps face their own share of criticism. Many students still struggle with finding a job after doing a bootcamp. Bootcamps have also been slandered for predatory pricing through income share agreements (taking a portion of someone’s income as tuition).

While bootcamps aren’t without their share of criticism, they have done a fair bit in changing the narrative around college from something that was so deeply ingrained in the minds of people to creating alternatives for whom college isn’t viable.

Apprenticeships rise again and College as middle-man no more

With the establishment of Universities in favor of apprenticeships, companies expected they could outsource training and filtering of job candidates to colleges. However, increasingly employers are waking up to the reality that colleges are not training students well for the job. Employers have to spend resources on training and apprenticing graduates anyway. As a result, companies like Zurich NA insurance and Accenture are expanding their apprenticeship programs, and others are dropping the degree requirement, especially in tight labor markets. Famous examples include Google and Delta Airlines. However, the critique here is that these companies have only dropped the requirement for some of the ‘back-office’ functions, not any of the ‘more significant’ or technical roles.

Worried about student debt, many students too are choosing apprenticeships in favor of college. Typically, apprenticeships have been associated with the construction trades. Now, they’ve expanded beyond that with 40% of apprenticeships outside construction trades and in white-collar industries such as banking, cybersecurity, and even consulting.10

There has also been a surge in total apprenticeships over the last 10 years, seeing a growth of 106%, with more than 600k apprenticeships offered in 2023. A consequence of companies offering apprenticeship programs directly from high school is that they have to design their own talent screening process as opposed to relying on college screening filters such as GPA. It will be interesting to see the new tests and screens companies use to rely on filtering.

If we look outside the U.S., apprenticeships in many European nations are much larger, partially because some of these governments offer a tax credit to employers offering apprenticeships. In 2022, there were 600,000 Americans in registered apprenticeship programs—a miniscule 0.3% of the US working-age population.11 

During the same year, the share of working-age adults in apprenticeship programs was over five times higher in Canada, seven times higher in Germany, and a staggering 12 times higher in Switzerland. For example, Germany has an apprenticeship system called “Ausbildung” where students spend 70% of their time at work, and only 30% in college.

Perhaps, the U.S. will adopt some of the apprenticeship models from Europe.

Trade Schools / Vocational programs

Trade schools take a streamlined approach to education and arm students with specific skills which are typically hands-on in nature.

From spring 2021 to spring 2022, many trade school disciplines saw significant increases in enrollment in two-year skilled trade programs, including a 11.5% increase in mechanic and repair, a 127% increase in personal and culinary courses and a 19.3% increase in construction trades. Last year alone, enrolment in vocational-focused community colleges rose 16%. Meanwhile, enrollment at public two-year colleges dropped 7.8% and dropped 3.4% at public four-year colleges for the same time period.

Further, some trade professions, like 90% of the construction companies, are facing worker shortages which is driving up wages and in turn attracting more people to the trades. According to a recent Fortune article, Gen Z is increasingly choosing trade schools over college to become welders and carpenters because “it’s a straight path to a six-figure job.”12

As more data comes out, it’ll be interesting to see the evolution of trade schools and whether they can sustain their growth.

Humans want prestige: Bootcamps & Apprenticeships vs. Thiel Fellowship

While bootcamps, apprenticeships, and trade schools are viable college alternatives for many students, they don’t have the power to break the college gospel that permeates society. On the contrary, even though the Thiel fellowship is small in size, it has the characteristics of a powerful attack at the University system, capable of eroding the college gospel.13

The primary reason for this is because bootcamps, apprenticeships, and trade schools lack prestige. They can compete with Universities on pay, but not on prestige. No one who is accepted at Harvard is picking a bootcamp over such a college! As a result, the students who attend these alternatives are the ones who would have otherwise attended a lower-ranked University.

Contrast this with the Thiel fellowship which is high in prestige. It not only competes with the Ivy Leagues on prestige, it surpasses them by getting students at Ivy’s and other prestigious Universities to drop out in favor of the Thiel fellowship! As noted in Part 1, ~70% of the Thiel’s fellowship’s first 2 batches were students from Ivy’s or other prestigious Universities.

If the mission of college alternatives is to break the idea of the college gospel, they would have to compete with the top Universities. This is because the gospel of college hails from the Ivy Leagues, which were some of the earliest established Universities in America. And competing with the Ivy Leagues implies competing on prestige. This is why, even though the Thiel fellowship is a smaller attack compared to bootcamps, it is a more powerful attack as it pertains to breaking the college gospel.

However, even though bootcamps and apprenticeships cannot compete on prestige or play a big role in breaking the college gospel, they still provide an alternative to students who only care about earning a higher pay. But if their mission is to see the collapse of Universities altogether, by themselves they alas won’t succeed. Humans care for prestige.

Conclusion

As Universities come under scrutiny, some will try to adapt, and new Universities will spring up to compete with the incumbents. Further, the decline in the value of Universities might have some interesting 2^nd order effects on society. I explore the emergence of new Universities, 2^nd order effects of the decline in University, and open question on the future of Universities in Part 3. Stay tuned!

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Please share this essay with anyone who might be interested in alternatives to college. You can follow me on X @aasthajs for more on the topic of alternative education.

We discuss:

• Schools as daycare

• If college was more useful in the past

• College is mostly signaling

• Killing DEI and gender studies in colleges

• How Hamas hit the prestige of American universities

• How Bryan homeschooled his kids, and more!

Bryan is candid, smart, and funny. Timestamps below. Hope you enjoy the episode!

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Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify.

Find me on X: @aasthajs for future posts and writing.

Read my essay: The Genius of Peter Thiel on attacking the Ivy Leagues and the high school dropouts shattering the college gospel

Follow Bryan Caplan on X. Bryan’s blog Bet on It.

Timestamps:

0:00 Public vs. Private Schools

1:40 Teaching “Learning how to learn” is wishful thinking

8:08 McKinsey does not teach critical thinking

9:36 Schools are daycare

11:30 Was college more useful in the past?

15:00 College is filtering for employers

16:08 Why don’t colleges improve learning?

18:53 Bryan’s argument with Tyler Cowen if he was University President..

26:03 Would Bryan start a new University?

32:11 Hamas hit the prestige of top American Universities

36:13 Would companies adopt Tyler’s talent hiring approaches?

42:03 Crazy idea that could collapse Universities

45:29 Education funding is inefficient

51:20 How Bryan homeschooled his kids

57:59 Does parental influence matter?

59:42 Government is strangling the housing industry

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The book Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch not only makes you smarter, but also enhances your life in a "personal development" sort of way. Here’s how:

1. You’ll be an optimistic happier person. It won’t be unbridled optimism - you’ll have a reason to be optimistic while still recognizing that human regression is possible, and we have to solve problems to progress.

2. You’ll believe in yourself more cause you’ll believe in humans more. You’ll understand how humans are unique in their creative problem solving and you will feel special and want to use it well.

3. You will feel less afraid to make a fool of yourself and you won’t judge others as much cause you recognize humans are fallible and everyone makes mistakes.

4. You won’t attach a negative connotation to the word "problem" the way most people do. You’ll recognize problems are soluble and in any case problems lead to more problems. So it’s fun to solve them and error correct.

5. Your relationships will improve cause you’ll take people seriously. Hopefully you’ll take your children seriously too.

6. You’ll have more fun cause you’ll take your ideas seriously and work on them if they’re fun.

7. You will also get smarter about discerning explanations which will save you time!

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If you enjoyed the The Beginning of Infinity, you might like my notes on the books Science and Human Values and The Ascent of Man.

Follow me on X @aasthajs for more on books, longevity, and education.

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It’s 1am. Sigil Wen is laying on his bed screaming. Screaming with joy. He just received his O-1 visa, a visa for immigrants with exceptional abilities to work in the U.S. Sigil is exceptional indeed. In high school, he started a company which he bootstrapped to $250k in revenue. Even though he was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, he deferred his college decision to pivot into building another company which was funded by top Silicon Valley investors. However, a few years in, the company’s prospects were not looking great, and Sigil decided to shut it down. He took some time off to contemplate his next move.

Contrary to what most people might predict, Sigil’s next move was not enrolling at Penn. Instead, Sigil boldly decided to skip college and joined the engineering team at Airchat, a Silicon Valley startup founded by Naval Ravikant, the founder of Angelist and one of the most well-regarded angel investors in Silicon Valley.

In deciding to skip college, Sigil might be a rebel in your eyes. However, only ~60 years ago, not going to college was the norm. In the 1970s, only 11% of the U.S. population1 completed a 4-year college, whereas in 2022 the number was 37%2. Prior to the 1990s, college was less ingrained in people’s minds as the standard path to take. The path to success was showing capability at the workplace, instead of showing capability by taking tests.

In 1850, Andrew Carnegie was a poor 14 year when he immigrated from Scotland to Pittsburgh and started working in the factories. Through hard work and some sales acumen, he managed to climb his way from the factory floor to being a telegram operator, to ultimately controlling the largest steel company in the world. John D. Rockefeller too started working at age 16 as an assistant bookkeeper. He needed no college degree to eventually become a business magnate and the richest American in history.

Similar to Carnegie and Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Henry Ford, Coco Chanel, Ray Croc (founder of McDonald’s) didn’t go to college. More recently, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Joe Rogan, Ralph Lauren, Anna Wintour, and Ellen DeGeneres either dropped out of college or didn’t attend at all.

All these people were extremely successful. And no one made a big fuss about them not attending college the way Mark Zuckerberg made headlines for dropping out of Harvard in the 21st century. Why the fuss? Because the late 20^th and early 21st century has seen the college degree turned into an ideology. Unlike in previous generations, today most people assume that in order to be successful, one must go to college. College is the new religion for any student who wants to embark on a successful career3.

However, will college continue to be the religion for our youth 50 years from now? Will it hold such a strong grip on society? Will our kids and grandkids continue to unquestioningly go to college? I’m not so sure I’d say yes. The tides are already turning. You may not see it yet but the bubble is beginning to burst. Students are taking matters in their own hands. You’ve already met Sigil, and now it’s time to meet some of his friends.

• Samir Vasavada dropped out of high school, and started his company Vise, a platform that automates investment management for financial advisors, which is valued at over $1bn.

• Robert Westbury dropped out of high school to start his own company before taking a job as a software engineer at Primer, a startup building microschools to revolutionize the education landscape in the U.S.

• Andrew Kirby decided to start his online business which made him financially free at 22.

• Arjun Khemani dropped out of high school to work at Airchat and to spend more time writing his newsletter.

• Alex Gyrov decided to apprentice at a tech startup in London at 17 years old instead of going to University.

• Zelda dropped out of high school and worked in Edtech startups, before writing a book on how to help teenagers hack their education.

Sigil and his friends are young revolutionaries who’ve launched a fire against the University system. In this essay, I highlight why their fire is not merely an inconsequential flame but has the potential to be the most powerful attack at the University system.

You may not recognize it but this fire was started by none other than Peter Thiel.

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel strikes top Universities

Peter Thiel casually launched the Thiel Fellowship at a conference in 2010. His claim was that Universities were molding students into conformists and the degree was largely becoming a credentialing mechanism. He would award $100k to a select few students each year to drop out of college and pursue an ambitious entrepreneurial endeavor.

Naturally, such a bold endeavor drew plenty of criticism. 10+ years later, all the critics have been shunned. The Thiel Fellowship has been wildly successful creating companies that are together valued at ~$50bn, excluding Ethereum which is valued at a whopping $450bn.

However, the Thiel Fellowship remains underrated. I want to underscore two important characteristics of the Thiel Fellowship that have played a significant role in attacking college unlike any other college attack in history.

One, Thiel was the first person to directly attack the Ivy League and the 1-2% most prestigious Universities. This is not only bold because it’s the first attack at the Ivy’s, but it’s also bold because it’s the critical attack needed to burst the college gospel.

Two, Thiel didn’t start a fellowship, he started a movement! He inspired other brilliant students to shun college in favor of their ambitious dreams. And now, students are carrying forward this renegade torch.

Let me detail each point.

(1) Thiel was the first person to directly attack the Ivy Leagues

When most people criticize college, they tend to criticize the lower ranked and questionable return on investment (ROI)4 Universities. Thiel was different. Through his fellowship, he launched a direct attack at the Ivory tower (By Ivory tower, I refer to the Ivy Leagues & other highly prestigious Universities ranking in the top 1-2%). Although he didn’t explicitly say so, his fellowship’s results are a clear indication.

For his inaugural class in 2011, I found information on 21 out of the 24 fellows. Here are the stats on which colleges they dropped out from:

So, 14 out of 21 were Ivy League + Stanford dropouts and 2 didn’t enroll in college at all.

What about the stats from 2012, the 2^nd year of running the program? I found information on 18 out of the 20 fellows:

11 out of 17 dropped out of Ivy Leagues + Stanford + Berkeley, the other 3 dropped out of prestigious Universities often considered “Public Ivies”, and 4 didn’t enroll in college in the first place!

The results above show that most of the inaugural Thiel fellows came from the Ivy’s and other prestigious Universities5. This is attested by Michael Gibson who ran the fellowship for Thiel and notes in his book The Paper Belt on Fire, how he and his colleague Danielle Strachman toured top University campuses to recruit the Thiel fellows.

By doing so, Thiel was directly attacking the Ivory tower. And the program was perfectly constructed to hurl such an attack. Thiel’s name, the program’s exclusivity (“20 under 20”) and recruiting students from top Universities allowed the program to match, if not surpass, the Ivy’s in prestige, thereby making it easier for students to pick the fellowship over continuing their Ivy League college degree.

As such, Thiel was the first one who even dared to attack the Ivory tower.

The Genius of Thiel: Why an attack at the Ivy’s has the power to burst the entire college gospel

And the Ivory tower felt the heat from Thiel’s attack. Larry Summers, former Harvard University president, lashed out against Thiel in a bid to protect his baby Harvard:

“I think the single most misdirected bit of philanthropy in this decade is Peter Thiel’s special program to bribe people to drop out of college,”

“I think it’s hard to look back and say it’s a sad thing that Bill Gates dropped out of college — world’s OK, he’s OK. I think it’s a hard thing to say that it’s sad that Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college. But they are extraordinary exceptions, and if any significant number of intellectually able people, of the kind that would have the opportunity to attend top schools are dropping out, I think it’s tragic.”

What Larry left out is who it’s “tragic for”. Dropping out to start a company or take a job is not tragic for the students. It’s tragic for Harvard. And it’s tragic for the entire University system.

But how can a tiny attack targeted at the top 1% make a dent to Harvard, let alone the college system? What’s the big deal about an attack at the 1%? To truly burst the college gospel, doesn’t one have to create alternatives for the other 99%?

No, because the power in the University system resides in the top 1%. Thiel knew that the Ivy Leagues and other prestigious Universities are largely responsible for inflating the value of the college degree and for making college a religion in today's world. Established in 1636, Harvard University is considered the first American University. Many of the other Ivy’s were founded soon after, years before the widespread establishment of public universities. Their founding role in the University system coupled with their association to an aristocratic education, has enabled them not only to control the power in the University system but to also set the precedent for “University-as-a-status”. Thiel’s genius lay in recognizing this one point – that the University degree prestige rests with the Ivy’s.

Recognizing this was brilliant in 2 major ways:

(i) Breaking the college gospel requires an attack on the 1%:

Not only is the attack on the 1% critical, but an attack on only the 99% (without an attack on the 1%) is not sufficient to break the college gospel. The prestige of the University system comes from the 1% and breaking that prestige requires an attack on the 1%.

(ii) An attack on the 1% will weaken the other 99%:

Further, an attack on the 1% will bring down the 99%. If the prestige of Harvard goes down, the prestige of other Universities and that of the entire University system goes down. If students begin to question the value of Harvard, then certainly more of them will question the value of other Universities.

The weight of Thiel’s attack is tugging at the Ivory tower and pushing them closer to the precipice of losing their status. Given that the other universities are chained to the 1%, a fall in the 1% will take the 99% down with them.

Thiel’s war forced society, culture, and employers to begin to re-examine the religion of college. It ignited questions on the gospel of college. Big employers like Google and Tesla no longer require college degrees for many roles. And importantly, by creating another alternative through the fellowship, it directly brought down the prestige of college, thereby leading the change on the religious beliefs surrounding the University degree.

Larry Summers is right to feel threatened.

Thiel had successfully deployed a crucial war strategy – attack the source of the power to win the war. In the college war, the Ivy’s are the source of the power or the army generals, while the other Universities are soldiers. Thiel knew that if he attacked the soldiers, but the army generals were unscathed, the war would be far from being won. But a successful attack on the army generals would make the soldiers eventually surrender themselves.

However, despite the Thiel fellowship’s savvy stratagem in attacking the 1% and its critical role in challenging the gospel of college, isn’t it still too tiny to melt the gold off of the degree papers? By itself it might be. But the Thiel fellows are not alone. As I said, Thiel has ignited a movement.

This brings me to my 2^nd point on why the fellowship is underrated.

(2) Thiel didn’t just start a fellowship. He started a movement!

Thiel assured the earlier generations of bold students that they weren’t crazy to harbor thoughts on the futility of college. In essence, he gave permission to top students to drop out of prestigious Universities. In doing so, he was the first person to encourage students to leave the Ivory tower, an idea most would and did balk at.

However, few people realize that Thiel’s impact has spread outside of merely the Thiel fellows. Having shown the world how students can create world-changing companies without a college degree, Thiel awakened more smart students to think beyond University as their default option and to chart their own paths. Thiel’s contribution to this awakening remains underrated.

Now, a newer generation doesn’t necessarily need Thiel’s stamp to drop out of college. You’ve already met Sigil and his friends who’ve started companies, sought incredible jobs and apprenticeships, built their own projects and reputation in the absence of a college degree. And I’m sure there are more that I don’t know of.

This newer generation has its own traits, 4 of which I want to highlight:

(i) They’re a step ahead by dropping out of High School:

Earlier generations of dropouts signaled their credibility by enrolling in top Universities before they dropped out. Badges of “Stanford dropout” or “Harvard dropout" are flouted to indicate that they’re smart enough to get into the Ivory tower, but they’re even smarter to not need it eventually.

Sigil’s friends are beyond applying to University in the first place! They don’t care for the badge of “Stanford dropout.” In fact, they proudly wear their own badge of “High School dropout”. They’re turning “High School dropout” into something that’s cool, not something to be ashamed of.

The previous era of bold students were top college dropouts. Now, we’re entering an era of bold high school dropouts.

(ii) They need no one’s permission; they’ve established their own alternative credential:

Previous generations signaled their value though the degree credential, or the Stanford dropout badge, or the “Thiel fellow” badge. This generation needs no one else’s badge. Armed with the Internet era, they display their capabilities through projects of their own. By creating code, newsletters, podcasts, businesses, and startups, they display their worth through proof of work as opposed to a badge someone else bestowed upon them. And in doing so, they’ve established their own alternative credential: “portfolio of projects.”

This has greater implications: not needing someone else to crown a badge on you allows a lot more people to chart their unique paths. The movement won’t be restricted to merely 20 Thiel fellows. Anyone can create their unique portfolio of projects and seek their own meritocratic path based on their interests.

(iii) They’re inspiring others like them:

Memes and sharing stories on social media seems to come more naturally to this generation. Similar to how Thiel inspired them to drop out of high school, they in turn are inspiring more high schoolers to build their own “portfolio of projects” and seize control of their future.

(iv) They are carrying forward Thiel’s attack on the Ivory tower:

Lastly, and most importantly, these high school dropouts are extremely talented and smart. They likely could have been accepted at top Universities. So, by choosing to not apply to University at all, they too are hurling an attack at the top Universities and the Ivory tower. Emboldened by Thiel, they are doing their part in carrying forward his torch. 

Conclusion: Rite of Passage, Universities as Luxury goods & Students hold the power

In the last 50 years, college has established itself as the rite of passage for an academically smart high school student. Is it a worthwhile rite of passage? Back in the days of hunter gatherers, once 12-14 year old boys were trained well, they were sent into the jungle by themselves for a few days to fend off predators and catch prey. If they survived, they successfully transitioned into men. The harsh jungle was the rite of passage for these boys. Today, the rite of passage for our young generation are college classes where most students don’t learn, tests that can be gamed, and parties. Sigh.

However, as we’ve seen, students are taking matters into their own hands, especially as Universities become less valuable and inflate prices at the same time. Increasingly, the business model of top Universities is becoming similar to that of luxury goods – charge exorbitant prices for the prestige. Seen from this vantage point, students are the celebrities who buy these luxury goods. However, what happens when celebrities fall out of favor with a luxury brand?

Imagine if celebrities stop buying Louis Vuitton and Tiffany in favor of a different brand. Do you think Louis Vuitton and Tiffany will hold the same appeal and be able to command high prices? No. Similarly, if top students drop out of Ivy Leagues or choose not to enroll at all, then Ivy leagues will begin to lose their power. Just like there is no Louis Vuitton without celebrities, there is no Harvard without its top students.

The bewildering part about education is that everyone seems to have an opinion on it, but no one seeks to ask students, the real consumers of education, as to what they think about the system! People assume that students are too young to make their own decisions and the adults must decide what education should look like. This is a fallacy. Students are capable of a lot more than adults incorrectly assume, and with the growing estrangement of students by Universities, they are left with no choice but to actively lead the charge in showing their discontent.

It's students who are attacking Universities on all fronts. Without students, Universities don’t exist. They have more power in these fortresses than they recognize. Students, the power resides in you.

“Like any other social structure, school needs to be accepted by its participants. It will not survive very long beyond the time when children can no longer be persuaded to accord it a degree of legitimation.” - Seymour Papert, author of Mindstorms.

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I highly recommend it. Some highlights and quotes from the book below:

On cultural evolution:

“Man is the only one who is not locked into his environment..And that series of inventions by which man from age to age has remade his environment is a different kind of evolution – not biological, but cultural evolution."

On what is human in human nature:

"Man is distinguished from other animals by his imaginative gifts..Every animal leaves traces of what it was; man alone leaves traces of what he created."

On the importance of cooperation in hunting:

"A slow creature like man can stalk, pursue & corner a large savannah animal that is adapted for flight only be cooperation. Hunting requires conscious planning & organization by means of language, as well as special weapons."

On the nomad life being immemorial:

"The Bakhtiari life is too narrow to have time or skill for specialization. There is no room for innovation, because there is not time on the move..to develop a new device..The only ambition of the son is to be like the father."

On the civilization defining role of agriculture:

"The largest single step in the ascent of man is the change from nomad to village agriculture..Settled agriculture creates a technology from which all physics, all science takes off."

Agriculture --> "organization of the city"

On cities resting on central authorities:

"Roads, bridges, messages in a great empire are always advanced inventions, because if they are cut then authority is cut off and breaks down - in modern times they are typically the first target in a revolution."

On the joy of practicing your craft:

"There is one gift above all others that makes man unique among the animals: his immense pleasure in exercising and pushing forward his own skill."

"The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill."

On the hand being "the cutting-edge of the mind":

"The hand is more important than the eye..it drives the subsequent evolution of the brain..We see this every time a child learns to lace its shoes, to thread a needle, to fly a kite or to play a penny whistle."

On fire disclosing a new class of materials - the metals:

"Fire is the alchemist's element by which man is able to cut deeply into the structure of matter..The nature of chemical processes was only understood when fire itself came to be understood as a process."

On the Renaissance:

"The Renaissance did not have the technical equipment to stop the picture frame instant by instant. But the Renaissance had the intellectual equipment: the inner eye of the painter & the logic of the mathematician."

On Astronomy:

"Astronomy is not the apex of science or of invention. But it is a test of the cast of temperament & mind that underlies a culture. The seafarers of the Mediterranean since Greek times had a peculiar inquisitiveness that combined adventure with logic.."

On Copernicus:

"Why were the paths of the planets so complicated? Because, he decided, we look at them from the place we happen to be standing, the earth. Like the pioneers of perspective, Copernicus asked, Why not look at them from another place?"

On Venice in 1600:

"When Shakespeare writes about the drama of power in his own age, he twice brings the scene to the Republic of Venice: once in the Merchant of Venice & then in Othello. That is cause in 1600 the Mediterranean was still center of the world & Venice was the hub"

On Galileo:

"Galileo thought that all he had to do was to show that Copernicus was right and everybody would listen. That was his first mistake: the mistake of being naive which scientists make all the time."

On Newton:

"Now that his notebooks have been read, it is clear that Newton had not been well taught and that he proved most of the mathematics he knew for himself. Then he went on to original discovery. He invented fluxions, what we now call the calculus."

On Einstein:

"He had a genius for finding philosophical ideas that gave a new view of practical experience. He did not look at nature like a God but like a pathfinder, a man inside the chaos of her phenomena who believed there is a common pattern if we looked with fresh eyes."

On the genius of Newton & Einstein:

"The genius of men like Newton and Einstein lies in that: they ask transparent, innocent questions which turn out to have catastrophic answers."

On schools & the industrial revolution:

"The men who made the [Industrial] revolution were practical men. They often had little education, and in fact school education as it then was could only dull an inventive mind."

On biology:

"The physical world 10 million years ago was the same as it is today, & its laws were the same. But the living world is not the same; 10 million yrs. ago there were no human beings to discuss it. Unlike physics, every generalisation about biology is a slice in time."

On fallibilism:

"What physics has now done is to show that that is the only method to knowledge. There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect."

On man's unique feature:

"No animal is faced with this dilemma: an animal is either social or solitary. Man alone aspires to be both in one, a social solitary. And to me that is a unique biological feature.

On human thought:

"In a sense, all science, all human thought, is a form of play. Abstract thought is the neoteny of the intellect, by which man is able to continue to carry out activities which have no immediate goal in order to prepare himself for long term strategies & plans"

On the Ascent of Man:

"We are here on a wonderful threshold of knowledge. The ascent of man is always teetering in the balance..And what is ahead of us? Bringing together of all we have learned in physics & in biology, towards an understanding of where we have come: what man is"

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If you enjoyed this, see my post or Twitter thread on another book by the same author, Science & Human Values.

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Schools have been immune to change

Companies that fail to innovate don’t survive. Animals that don’t evolve become extinct. Managers that don’t do a good job are let go.

But American schools seem to be omnipotent. They are shielded from competition. They are protected from dying off.

Our failure to allow for means of error-correction within the school system has resulted in an unsuccessful experiment that has overstayed its time. When public schools were initially established by Thomas Jefferson, they were structured as three-year schools meant to teach only basic literacy and math. In the 1840s, Horace Mann, known as the Father of Modern Education, advocated for emulating the Prussian model of education which is very similar to the “factory model” that exists today. 1852 was another turning point - Massachusetts became the first state to adopt compulsory schooling with the other states following soon after. By 1910, public school in America was transformed with 72% of American children going to compulsory schools.1

While providing literacy to all is a noble cause, the 1840 Prussian school experiment has failed to adapt to a dynamic world. Today, schools resemble institutions that are subduing the youthful energy of our kids. In a nutshell, we set up schools, made them compulsory, and then decided to lock our kids in there without bothering to see whether the experiment is working, or making meaningful progress to correcting errors in the experiment.

The government has taken it upon itself to make our children literate and it’s failing miserably. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 31% of 8^th graders performed at or above proficiency level in reading in 2022. The same number was 33% for 4^th graders, and 37% for 12^th graders2. This means that nearly 70% of our students can’t read at the proficiency level for their grade, a skill that is the most important superpower for learning.

The bleak results are largely because public schools don’t operate in the free market, shielding them from competition and accountability. Charter schools have tried to compete with public schools but it’s notoriously hard to get mandates to set them up. This is because charter schools threaten funding away from low-performing public schools (it should be the case if we allow for free competition), which tends to create an uproar among teachers’ unions. Regardless, most private and charter schools have to comply with the state curriculum, thereby not innovating much on learning pedagogy either. As a result, they’re running the same experiment as public schools.

It’s not that public schools haven’t tried to adapt. Clayton Christensen’s book Disrupting Schools argues that contrary to what most people think, public schools have made many attempts at curbing the criticism hailed at them. However, these attempts have not been enough and have not yielded results. And the attempts at change have been heavily restricted because of lack of free market competition.

Disgruntled parents recognize that the lack of free market activity has caused the entire school system to not function well. The way out is the way out of the school system.

The rise in homeschooling

Currently, around 3.5 million children are homeschooled in America. While this number might seem small compared to the ~49 million students enrolled in public schools, homeschooling far surpasses public schools in enrolment growth. Over the last 6 years, homeschooling has seen a ~51% rise in students, compared to only 7% for private schools, and a decline of 4% for public schools.3

Many people associate homeschooling with parents who want to provide religious instruction to their children. While this is true to some extent, religious instruction no longer remains the dominant reason to homeschool.

In 2012, 60% of parents picked religious instruction as the primary reason to homeschool, compared to 34% in 2023. Today’s parents are dissatisfied with schooling primarily because of “concern about school environment”, “to provide moral instruction”, and “dissatisfaction with academic instruction at schools”4. Some other parents realized how their kids were happier, more engaged and curious when homeschooled during Covid, compared to public schools.

Hence, parents have taken it upon themselves to educate their children. And they’re right in doing so. Studies even indicate how homeschoolers score 15 to 25 percentile points above public school students on standardized academic achievement tests.5

However, homeschooling is not feasible for all parents. They go to work, they want other teachers for their kids, and they want more social group activities. Ingenious parents evolved another way to solve this problem. They created learning pods and microschools. Parents have innovated more in education in the last 5 years than the government has in decades!

Microschools – the startups of education

Microschools are informal schools of a small group of students where the learning is centered on the student’s needs. Typical schools are focused on standard curriculums, but most microschools take a more personalized approach to learning. Some people describe them as the re-emergence of the one-room schoolhouse where students of mixed-ages would follow their individualized curriculum with the teacher serving as the guide. Microschools also tend to be 15 students or under, although you will find some larger ones. Most allow for flexible schedules - parents can choose to send their kids to the microschools for a couple of days a week and only for a few hours as opposed to the standard schedule offered by traditional schools.

Some microschools are science-based, some focus on classic studies, some cater to neurodiverse students, some are faith-based, some are Montessori-inspired, and some are for unschoolers (self-directed learning), among the many diverse variety.

You will notice that there is no standard definition of a microschool and I’m describing many of its features. The truth is that there is no concept of a standard microschool; they don’t come in cookie-cutter coke bottles. And this is exactly what makes them so special! Each microschool innovates in its own way, trying different education pedagogies and teaching methods. However, they’re all coherent in their mission towards student-centered learning and towards creating a better educational environment for children than what exists in traditional schools. Microschools allow for more experimentation in education.

I see microschools as the startups of K12 education.

Microschools offer choice to parents

Microschools started gaining popularity during COVID when parents banded together to start small group learning pods for their kids. Some of the parents would take turns teaching the students and some others would hire a teacher for the pod. Microschools are the more formal name for a learning pod typically implying that the pod is run by a teacher instead of parents, and they charge tuition. If homeschooling can demand a lot of time from parents, and traditional schools aren’t geared towards student-centric learning, microschools are a great solution that incorporate personalized learning solutions, small group socialization, and flexible schedules.

Moreover, microschools give parents more choice in schooling for the first time. Similar to how you walk into a grocery store and can pick your choice of yogurt, parents and students can pick the microschool that best suits them. They no longer have to be restricted to only one type of curriculum offered by the public and private schools in their area.

Factors favoring Microschools

Public school teachers starting their own microschools

It’s not just parents who are disgruntled with the traditional school system. Teachers are too. Troubled by low pay and the compulsion to comply with state mandates that often make little sense, public school teachers are leaving the system to start their own microschools. Between 2020 and 2022 alone, about 300,000 public school teachers and staff left the education system, corresponding to ~3% of the workforce6.

A lot of these teachers have started their own microschools, giving them an opportunity to become business owners. Additionally, smaller classrooms have allowed teachers to develop stronger bonds with each student, a primary reason they were attracted to teaching in the first place.

School Choice Movement

Innovations on the financing side are also aiding microschools. The school choice movement is growing steam. Currently, there are 15 Educational Savings Account (ESA) programs in 13 states7. This means that if you choose to not send your child to public school, you are eligible for ~$8k towards private school education or after-school programs, including microschools. 7 of these programs are universal school vouchers available to any student. And 8 of them provide school vouchers for students with special needs or to those from low-income families.

For many parents, this money is the deciding factor between being able to send their kids to a microschool vs. continuing public school, as further evidenced by the growth in students using ESA money.8

School vouchers are not only beneficial to parents, but they also help state and local budgets. Taxpayers spend an average of $16,446 per student annually in public schools.9 Conversely, school vouchers of ~$8k are less than half the cost of public school student allocation. This frees up resources for state and local governments to allocate to other causes.

Microschools are not immune to error-correction

The greatest aspect of microschools is that they operate in the free market and don’t block the means of error correction. If a parent is not satisfied with their child’s microschool, they will pull their child out. If a microschool does not solve the academic rigor a parent is looking for, a new microschool might pop up to serve the unmet demand. Microschools operate more like private businesses and not schools shielded by the government, which means that if they fail to serve their consumer, they will die and deserve to. Further, one can hope that competition from microschools would make public schools step up their game.

Microschools are more nimble

Most microschools are being established as homeschool co-ops or after-school programs such that they don’t have to jump through regulatory hoops to get school licensing. This makes it faster and easier for them to start up. The current rules around school licensing aren’t structured to work for microschools, so it only makes sense for microschools to chart their own path for now.

There is a growing concern that states will begin to crack down and enforce rules of traditional schools onto microschools. For example, one microschool was forced to shut down because of zoning restrictions, a rule that has been set for traditional schools and doesn’t make much sense to the new situation. Regulation should update its playbook for microschools or stay away to allow the free market to innovate in education. People worry that without regulation and mandates, there is a chance that some of the kids might not learn much. This argument is not very strong for two reasons. One, the data shows that kids aren’t learning much in public schools so the mandates aren’t working too well – note that mandates don’t imply learning. Two, if the kids aren’t learning, the parents can simply pull their kids out of the microschool.

Microschools work well in a free-market system, shifting the accountability from the government to parents. In most states in the U.S., the public school your child goes to depends on the district you reside in, leaving parents with few school options. As a result, public schools don’t leave much room for parents to be accountable for school choice. On the other hand, microschools bestow parents with more decision making power.

The optimistic world of microschools

The Internet era has changed many products we interact with. Physical newspapers are on the decline. Maps are a thing of the past. Taxi cabs are not hailed in traditional ways anymore. Books can now be read online. Food is ordered to your doorstep in minutes. The best teachers are available at the click of a button.

Yet, despite one of the biggest advances of the Internet being that learning online is now abundant and free, schools haven’t adapted to the new world. They don’t allow for error-correction and this is a fatal mistake.

In a dynamic world, if there is no way for us to correct our errors, society won’t move forward. Progress will decline. And human quality of life will suffer.  

We’ve tried the traditional school experiment for decades. It’s not working. It’s time to try something new. And microschools are the pioneers of this.

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Two days ago, I turned a year older. I like to reflect on my birthday, a good reminder of how magically unpredictable and beautiful life is. Some thoughts and notes to myself:

1. I understand myself more with each passing year. I get more comfortable highlighting my unique self, as opposed to trying to be like someone else.

2. I fell in love. It’s the most beautiful thing there ever is. I wish it upon everyone.

3. Marriage is a special bond. Some traditions matter.

4. I care more about my health each year. I’m not willing to sacrifice health for short-term pleasure and don’t care about looking weird in social gatherings. I’m willing to spend large amounts of money on health.

5. I understand the importance of good sleep, at least for me. I’ll pay a premium for it, i.e. no early morning flights.

6. Jumping and swimming in the cold lakes of Glacier is terrifying at first and exhilarating 1 minute in. It’s one of the best feelings.

7. Long walks and bike rides in nature > City life.

8. Wild edible berries are miles better than ones in stores. Feast when you find it.

9. Intense exercise is like meditation. You’re in the present.

10. I broke a bone and learned how injuries suck. Avoid at all costs.

11. There are few things in life that matter – health, love, and how you spend majority of your time.

12. I’m very grateful for family. I feel closer to them.

13. I want to hang out with people I enjoy talking to, regardless of whether our opinions align or not. I’ve started trusting my intuition with people. I’m much less open to social gatherings that are not enjoyable.

14. I’m more willing to spend money to save time and outsource things I don’t want to do.

15. I’m more comfortable sharing when I don’t understand things, when I make mistakes, when I feel lost, or when things are not going well. I used to feel embarrassed to do so.

16. I’ve become more straightforward in my talk.

17. I’m more okay talking about my anger / annoyance when something is wrong. I don’t think annoyance is always bad. It’s a signal to understand yourself better. But it shouldn’t hurt others or consume you. The worst is brooding in the past. 

18. I’ve stopped meditating as much. And I miss it.

19. It’s hard to not listen to outside voices influencing the direction of my life. But well worth the effort to avoid.

20. I’m more comfortable sharing my opinions, even if they’re unpopular.

21. I only started having an online presence in the last 2.5 years. The internet is a beautiful place. I’ve learned a lot online and met some great people. However, it’s also a place I can waste a lot of time – something to be mindful of.

22. Following your curiosities leads to good things. It’s how I started Live Longer World. And even if it doesn’t, you have so much fun in the process.

23. Writing is beautiful.

24. Making money is not easy. Starting a business is not easy. Don’t start a business for the sake of starting one. Work on what you care about.

25. Don’t work with and for people you don’t respect. Do good research on the founders and employees before taking a job. Who you work with matters.

26. You do get influenced by people you hang out with, even if it’s in subtle ways.

27. I discard books more readily. It’s more about reading what’s useful to me. Books were my first love. I’m always reading.

28. I listen to fewer podcasts, read fewer blogs. Instead, I read more books.

29. You learn if you want to learn. I don’t believe in how schools and colleges ‘educate’ students.

30. The doctor’s word is not gospel. Do your own research.

31. Take no one’s word. Think through things yourself.

32. Marvel at the majestic expanse of the universe.

33. Incentives matter. 

34. I don’t care about being judged. Or I try not to most of the time.

35. I want to work on my oral communication.

36. Children are wonderful. 

37. The past is bygone. So much for these reflections haha!

38. I’m more okay sharing thoughts online. This post being an example!

39. Check email less. 

40. Knowledge and Optimism are the most powerful tools. Problems are soluble. 

41. Ideas are important, more than most people want to make you believe. 

42. Compounding is truly the 8th wonder of the world in all domains of life - health, relationships, wealth, knowledge.

43. Time spent thinking is time well spent. 

44. Being kind is a very nice thing. 

45. I love writing love letters to my husband.

46. Small dinners with friends are always a great time.

47. Gift books. Giving gifts feels good. 

48. I readily give compliments. If something is worth complimenting, I don’t shy away from it. 

49. I respect people trying new things or experimenting with their own ideas. Ideas should be taken seriously. 

50. Once you start practicing something, you realize all the theory you read doesn’t help much. Practice > Theory. 

51. It’s the small actions that people do that reveals their character. One is always prepared for the big ones. 

52. Quiet and peaceful times > loud cafes and streets. 

53. Keep everything simple. Complications are never worth it.

54. Dancing is joy. Always be dancing to T Swift!

55. Don’t discount beauty. Beautiful things are…beautiful!

56. Some things only make sense in the long term.

57. You get what you pay for. Don’t be cheap.

58. Salads and vegetables are delicious.

59. Decisions are how you live your life. 

60. Don’t be afraid to read hard books.

61. Learn science. 

62. It’s hard to get anything done if your mind is not in a peaceful happy place.

63. It’s become harder and harder for me to work on things I find boring.

64. Great projects take time. Think and act long-term.

65. Rest is important. You come back refreshed with newer ideas, without even knowing you did.

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