Artist and Entrepreneurs
Two archetypes succeed greatly in careers
- Artists
- Entrepreneurs
I use these terms more broadly.
Who is an artist?
Artist solves a hard problem themself, create something new, and push the boundary of what is possible. A physicist working on a new experiment, a chef cooking a new dish, a stock market investor who keeps returning 30% CAGR. All artists.
Steph Curry is an anomaly in the basketball world. If you look at the best players of all time -- LeBron James or Michael Jordan, you see a clear dominance of sheer physicality that rules the game of basketball. Steph is none of that. Steph is lean, weighing 84 Kg compared to 98 Kg for Michael Jordan and 113 Kg for LeBron James. In the basketball world, Steph is short, too. LeBron is 2.06 m, Michael Jordan is 1.98 m, and Steph is 1.88 m. Still, Steph is in the Hall of Fame with the other guys. I read a research work on what makes Steph one of the best players. The research pointed out that Steph possesses an unusual skill of understanding the relative positioning of players. In a few milliseconds, he can see not just where the players stand but also where they will be in the short future. This skill enables him to position himself at locations others won't be able to block. The result? Steph places himself in precise positions on the court, allowing him to be the king of three-pointers.
In 2000, Larry Page was frustrated with the quality of their indexing system. The search results weren't as comprehensive or as fast as he wanted. Instead of calling a meeting, he pasted a note on the common area whiteboard with the text - "Indexing sucks." Jeff Dean, a senior engineer at Google, found the note and took it personally. He went home on a Friday and had re-written the entire approach to indexing by Sunday. On Monday, he emailed the results of the new algorithm to Larry and took the day off to rest from the all-nighter weekend sprint. The result? That approach evolved into MapReduce, which saved the company from going bankrupt and now powers the backbone of indexing all of the World's information.
The above are some extreme examples of artists at work.
But then, who is an entrepreneur?
Someone who solves something in a scalable way. You see a problem many people have, such as ordering a cab or food, and find a way restaurants or drivers can be available at your fingertips. Entrepreneurs don't necessarily create a new solution but bring to light a solution for a larger audience. If you want to solve World hunger, an entrepreneur wouldn't go and cook food themself. They would identify where a surplus of food is produced and possibly wasted and find a way to distribute it to those without access.
You either solve a hard problem by becoming the solution yourself, like an artist, or you build a scalable solution that works without you, like an entrepreneur. In both these cases, you unlock a value that wasn't possible before; you bring to reality a future that only you can actualize. And that is immensely valuable in this World.
Money flows to those who can bend the fabric of causality. Both artists and entrepreneurs dream of a future and possess the ability to convert it into reality. Why is Leonel Messi paid hundreds of millions of dollars in salary? Because having him on your team ensures that the probability of the future where your team wins is significantly higher. Why does so much capital flow to entrepreneurs? Because they promise a future where the company skyrockets and your money grows in order of magnitudes.
Most highly successful people can be classified into two choices. They are either artists or entrepreneurs. In rare scenarios, they are both.