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Comment by jey | Hacker News Reader

tl;dr?

Being smart isn't good enough; you need to be able to finish what you've started. It's all about the execution and not the concept.

Furthermore, he's found he prefers to select hard workers and promote them up than to pick smart, ambitious kids from good families or good credentials. Hard work is better than sheer brilliance.

People who are driven by genius and passion never finish anything. This guy finds the best employees and businessmen are just average hard workers who pay attention to detail.

and finish.

The big thing there, the part that resonated in my mind, was finish. I need to finish more things...

The person that started less 'brilliant', through finishing, can usurp the brilliance of the one that started strong. Intelligence is a gift and should be nurtured, not presumed on.

seriously? it's an excellent piece of writing and not all that long; just go read it.

If they're looking for the short way out, I don't know if they'll get any value out of actually reading it.

Counter point -- I usually read the comments before the articles themselves (personal preference). The tl;dr above made me go read the article. It is indeed great.

He's too brilliant to read such a long article.

Guy is supposedly the best in his field but doesn't get any work done. Boss gives him free reign before seeing results and ends up disappointed.

Basically women didn't exist back then, was the gist I got from it.

Yeah yeah "that's the way it was back then"..

Lessons learned from running an apparently moderately successful grocery chain in 1920s America.

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