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A comment on A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown. Parent comment

Re:A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown by VoodooJuJu on Monday September 18, 2023 @10:22AM (#37556488)
I think believing in this kind of determinism is harmful, mostly to the individual who holds the belief, but also at scale, when many fools hold this belief. It makes you ripe for exploitation and deceives you into being or staying a loser, "oh if only I had that arcane magic ability that he has...". Fortune, grit, and deception [1] make kings, not some kind of magic superhuman sixth sense.

[1] Deception also prevents the making of kings, as in the case of the man who believes magic is what he'll need to succeed, and it's this magic he doesn't have.

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Re:A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown by foobarian on Monday September 18, 2023 @10:36AM (#37556680)
> Fortune, grit, and deception

Well yeah so now instead of a super intellect you need grit. Good luck with that if you're born a low energy lazy person. :-)

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Re:A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown by ldjkfkdsjnv on Monday September 18, 2023 @10:23AM (#37556508)
No its just the reality in a capitalist economy. Human beings are normally distributed, by definition there are people on the far right tail of ability. Its a numbers game.
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Re:A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown by mshron on Monday September 18, 2023 @10:58AM (#37557030)
Eh. I studied math at an elite university with a lot of people who ended up at these secretive quant hedge funds. They're undeniably brilliant, and as per GP also extremely motivated and hard working (brilliance alone doesn't cut it!).

They're also heavily dependent on collaboration with others, availability of data, the existence of the right tools, and so on. Unlike in comic books, raw intelligence alone doesn't get you very far. But put a bunch of very smart people together for a decade+ with a lot of money on their hands and you can definitely make magic happen.

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Re:A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown by ldjkfkdsjnv on Monday September 18, 2023 @11:18AM (#37557367)
Academic achievement doesnt mean someone can come up with new things.
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Re:A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown by RandomLensman on Monday September 18, 2023 @12:45PM (#37558593)
Leading people in their fields tend to come up with or find new things.
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Re:A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown by paulpauper on Monday September 18, 2023 @12:27PM (#37558386)
Unlike in comic books, raw intelligence alone doesn't get you very far.

what about solo tech start-ups?

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