throwaway9278

Billions of people use facebook to connect with their friends. Billions use google to find information they need. Hundreds of millions use Amazon to get affordable stuff quickly. 10s of millions of people use Dropbox to store and sync their files.

Seems like this is a lot more than most companies have to offer, no?

There is huge variation in ability.

I was valedictorian. That might be achievable through work. Fair enough. But that's nothing compared to what top-tier minds can do.

I also had a childhood friend who tested 4 standard deviations out on a psychologist administered IQ test in high school. We had similar backgrounds. We sometimes "tied" in grades, but there is a huge gaping ability gap between me and him. You cannot study your way to that level. The raw throughput, creativity, and abstract conceptual ability cannot be achieved through practice. Maybe you have to see it yourself to believe it.

And really this shouldn't surprise us. There is huge variation in athletic talent, and anyone can see it. Why should our brains be different?

No. We do know this. We know cognitive ability varies between people. It's obvious to everyone who's competed with others in mental competitions, and it's born out by a century of psychological research.

You can't just train to win the Putnam if you don't have the talents. Have you ever sat and worked problems with someone exceptional in that area? Try it if you get the chance. The variation in ability will blow you away.

Are you so sure you're not yourself trapped in an irrational thinking loop?

Global warming is not a civilization-ending threat. Even nuclear war is not a civilization-ending threat, outside a few places in the Northern hemisphere. I could be wrong about both of these claims. But you could be as well, and you're taking an extremely pessimistic view based on what you know, which is not the whole picture.

You probably won't make 200k right out of undergrad in bigtech these days. But you will within 2-3 years. Most of my acquaintances in bigtech make 220-260K by age 25 doing run-of-the-mill stuff. This does not require elite level skill or knowledge - just merely bright people who put in the time and pass the filters. Most of us are fairly mediocre.