Trevor McKendrick - The banality of genius

Good morning!

I got an early copy of Tyler Cowen & Daniel Gross’s new book, Talent.

The book is about how to find undiscovered talent. It gets into very detailed, practical things - chapters 2 & 3 are about what specific questions to ask during interviews.

As I tweeted the other day, it’s refreshing just to see Tyler & Daniel acknowledge that genius & greatness can exist in an individual in the first place.

The book comes out in May - hoping to have a review in the near future.

Have a great week!

Trevor

How Paul Giamatti broke the California wine industry (article)

Apparently he had a semi-famous monologue in a 2005 movie where he dissed on Merlots, which led to their price cratering and a surge of demand for Pinot Noir.

BTW: the best Paul Giamatti movie is The Truman Show

The pig heart transplant guy is still alive(!) (article)

“Some two weeks later Bennett is still alive, with his new heart beating soundly. So far, there are no reports of rejection of the pig’s heart by his immune system. Some of the 10 genetic changes made to the pig heart prior to transplantation seem to have subdued the usual sequence of rejection.”

Please note the FDA rejected the researchers’ application to do a clinical trial of this procedure, and only were able to perform it on this particular patient with one-off permission because he was certain to die without it.

I’ll say it again: we might be immortal today but for the FDA.

Reflections on six months of fatherhood (article)

“If the goal of life were to relax and take it easy, [my daugther] would already be at the pinnacle, with nowhere to go. But—as she reminds me, with every striving crawl across the room, with every curious coo at a strange new object—relaxation is not the goal of life. Not of hers, nor of mine, nor of humanity’s.”

Tyler Cowen on why education is productive (article)

He starts with the known paradox: people who get an education make more money, but most school feels like a total waste of time. So what gives?

In this short post he basically says getting an education changes your perception of yourself - it’s a commitment to something bigger than then gets drummed into you repeatedly. He makes it sound less romantic by the way.

I think at least some of that is true.

Related, another lifelong principle is that your perception of yourself & the place you think you deserve in the world is possibly one of the most undervalued sources of high performance. At best it’s not discussed, at worst it’s dismissed as self-help guruship. But I think how you see yourself impacts a thousand tiny decisions you make every day that ultimately compound over time.

The Banality of Genius (long article)

“Notes on Peter Jackson's Get Back”

The trick is to remember that the inputs to greatness are astonishingly boring.

It’s the difference between the 8 hours of documentary footage that you see in Get back vs the live, 42 minute rooftop performance it culminated in.

And Finally…

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Have a great week!

Trevor