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Comment by numpad0 | Hacker News Reader

>> ... tend to be less effective than...

> At what?

Accumulating government issued currencies? I do have an impression that technical literacy rarely pays off. It is not like human history is full of trillionaire theoretical physicists and practical machinists.

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>Accumulating government issued currencies?

I mean, not just in terms of making money, but inventing new technologies, saving lives or any tangible measure of success. At some point, you need to play the game.

Most big inventions were made by people in their 20's. If what you say is true those people would then go on to make even more big things in their 30's, 40's, 50's etc, but that doesn't seem to happen. Rather it seems like they explored the topic early in life and then stopped exploring and just continued looked at the world from the same lens as they got older.

Edit: Also all of Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon were started by people in their 20's. That is a pretty big coincidence, especially given that younger people have fewer connections and less money than older ones and therefore should in theory have a harder time starting a company.

It could also just be that people generally have fewer responsibilities and probably a higher risk tolerance earlier in life. Once you get into your thirties you might have a family, be more established in a given career path, be thinking more seriously about saving for retirement, etc. For all of the big inventions or successful companies you're thinking of, there are likely many more that turned out to be failures, and that's less of a setback to someone in their twenties.

In many of the arts, a typical famous biography will involve study and development of a great amount of technical ability through their 20's, and then to branch off from that some time in the 30's into a more streamlined and conceptual approach. They favor different things: a twenty-something will "take to the grind" because they are hungry to do so, and this often sends them on the path to a totally incoherent result - but is great if it's just a really hard puzzle and all the pieces and prerequisites are there(which is often the case in industry). Someone older may have less sheer energy, but is placing much more calculated bets and using more abstract thought processes, which is good for problems with long timelines and large scale.

I think early mover advantage tends to help younger people, because they try/learn new things more often. As you get older, there's a tendency to just repeat the same things you always did before, and served well. The odds of being a early mover at anything decrease. People only jump in when everybody else and his dog already did. Good tactic to avoid losing time with fads, but also ensures you won't spearhead the next big thing.

I don’t think most theoretical physicists are seeking wealth, they tend to have deeper intellectual motivations.

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