In 2020, I wrote confidently that “there are no Supermonkeys.” I was wrong. Or at least, I was only partially right. Let me explain.

🐵

In my final year of university, one of my friends bought a car. I went with him to pick it up. We drove from Dunedin to Christchurch in his old car. We drove back to Dunedin in his new car.

His new car was a Nissan Pulsar GTi-R. It was faster than any other car I’d been in at the time.

It struck me how quickly and easily the car was able to drive up hills. It could overtake other cars with ease. It was the first time that I truly appreciated the difference a car makes.

Before that I had the misconception that it was all about the driver, and how they chose to drive the car. Yes, I knew about Ferraris and Lamborghinis. But I thought they were distinct because of what they looked like, more so than how they performed. I was wrong.

🐵

People are a little bit like cars. Some people are faster – or more effective – in certain domains than others.

In some domains, I might be a Toyota Corolla, and you are probably a Porsche 911. You might even be a Bugatti Veyron. In others, it might be the other way around.

🐵

The difference between cars and people, is that we can upgrade ourselves within the domains we choose.

With the right circumstances and dedication, and the choice of the right domain, we can convert ourselves from a Ford into a Ferrari.

🐵

I’m a Beatlemaniac. Despite my reservations about its length, I love the Peter Jackson version of Get Back. Despite everything I’ve read and watched about the Beatles, it provided me with fresh new insights about the fab four as individuals and as a band.

Watching Get Back , one of the things that struck me was their competence.

Each of them was able to pick up an instrument and play something entirely new, and the others were able improvise to match. One of them could provide vague (to me) instructions to another and that person would adjust while they were still playing. They had a vocabulary for talking about songs and structure that were like a foreign language to me.

If you replaced one of the Beatles with me , I’d bumble away and do more harm than good. In the context of those sessions, I might as well have been a different species.

This challenges my original “no supermonkeys” thesis perfectly. In music, the Beatles were absolutely operating at a different level - so much so that to an amateur like me, they might as well have been a different species. Yet in other contexts, like business decisions, they were often out of their depth, as Apple Corps’ well-documented management issues show. They weren’t Supermonkeys in any general sense, but in their specific domain? Absolutely.

It was predicated on talent. Also, a whole lot of work.

🐵

Every now and then, my wife and I participate in pub quizzes.

I often get credit for being “good” at quizzes like this, even though I’m not. This is evidence that in some cases, you can seem competent, but not actually be competent.

On the other hand, we have friends who are genuinely good at pub quizzes. They have a lot of general knowledge. But they also know how quizzes seem to operate, and how to deduce the right answers so that even if they don’t know the answer, they’re still likely to get it right.

They are consistently in one of the top-scoring teams.

They are pub quiz supermonkeys.

🐵

In 2020 I wrote an article explaining that there are no Supermonkeys. It was one of my favourite articles of the year.

Reading it now, I can see I was reacting against hero worship and the idea of general superiority. I was right about that part - there are no universally superior humans. But I missed something crucial: the existence of domain-specific excellence that can seem almost supernatural to those of us outside that domain.

Ultimately, the key point was:

” all humans are working within the same general parameters. Yes, we might differ in IQ, but the difference is measured in standard deviations, not qualitative shifts. By this I mean that that the difference between any two healthy humans is never going to resemble the difference between a pocket calculator and a modern desktop computer processor. Or one species compared to another.”

The lesson I wanted to impart was that:

“There isn’t a single person who is fundamentally, qualitatively better than the rest of us. There are no Supermonkeys. By extension, no ‘guru’ or ‘idol’ should go unchecked.”

I probably liked this article so much because it stroked and reinforced my egalitarian sensibilities.

My natural tendency is to consider people equal as much as possible. One of the reasons I like working for myself and not having employees is that I’m uneasy with hierarchical structures, and telling other people what they should do. I worked as a lawyer for many years, but I never got comfortable with the idea of having a secretary.

For this reason, I think I missed a lot of nuance and counterarguments.

🐵

Every now and then I return to Eliezer Yudkowsky’s 2008 article about competent elites. Some excerpts:

  • “One of the major surprises I received when I moved out of childhood into the real world, was the degree to which the world is stratified by genuine competence.”
  • “I was invited once to a gathering of the mid-level power elite, where around half the attendees were “CEO of something”—mostly technology companies, but occasionally “something” was a public company or a sizable hedge fund… // … these people of the Power Elite were visibly much smarter than average mortals. In conversation they spoke quickly, sensibly, and by and large intelligently. When talk turned to deep and difficult topics, they understood faster, made fewer mistakes, were readier to adopt others’ suggestions. / … even worse than that, much worse than that: these CEOs and CTOs and hedge-fund traders, these folk of the mid-level power elite, seemed happier and more alive. / This, I suspect, is one of those truths so horrible that you can’t talk about it in public.”
  • “I’m pretty sure that, statistically speaking, there’s a lot more cream at the top than most people seem willing to admit in writing.”

Ouch.

🐵

When I read about Bill Gates’ early years, it’s difficult to dispute that he had a rare and unique combination of intelligence and Drive (with a capital D).

It wasn’t inevitable that he’d have become the richest man in the world for as many years as he was. But it seems very likely that he’d have been successful in whatever domain he chose to succeed in.

For context: the first car Bill Gates bought was a brand new Porsche 911. This was before Microsoft was anything like the Microsoft we know/love/feel ambivalent about today.

If we did actually live in a simulation, and we simulated thousands of universes, my guess is that there would be very few universes where Bill Gates wasn’t a multi-millionaire. He may not always have become a billionaire, but he is the sort of horse I would put money on.

I recently listened to a three-part podcast series about Gates’ good friend, Warren Buffett. The same goes with Buffett.

In each case, I’m not saying that Gates or Buffett or anyone else are “better” than others, especially in a holistic sense. But on top of having the capability, they had the drive, focus, and intensity that enabled them to become supermonkeys in their specific domains.

🐵

At a more personal level, over the past few years I’ve had the privilege of meeting quite a few people who’ve been very successful in business or their chosen vocations. Many of these people are worth millions, and in some cases, tens of millions of dollars.

You wouldn’t know their net worth by chatting with them. But you would get a sense that these are highly capable, competent, and intelligent people.

They are often different, in some ineffable way. It might show up as a general vibe of confidence; an unusual ability to quickly grasp complex situations; or a knack for asking precisely the right questions; or even just a particular intensity when discussing their area of expertise.

With 20 years of adult experience behind me, I feel like I am starting to see some characteristics of people who are likely to excel in their chosen domains.

There are people I know who are in their 20s who I’m extremely confident will do well in the domains they’ve chosen (or are yet to choose).

🐵

This isn’t a very egalitarian message.

The unfortunate truth is that some people aren’t in circumstances where it’s easy to “upgrade” their capabilities. There are also people who don’t have the health, energy, intellectual horsepower, or drive to do so.

This makes me sad. But it doesn’t stop it from being true.

🐵

I don’t write this article to suggest that people who aren’t “supermonkeys” in their chosen domains should be entitled to any less dignity than others.

On this note, it’s worth noting that people aren’t “supermonkeys” in any definitive, pervasive sense. If there’s another thing that struck me about Get Back , it was that the Beatles were just a group of 20-year-olds. Outside of music, they had the same strengths and weaknesses of many other people in their late 20s.

However, I think it’s important to recognise that supermonkeyism is a thing within specific domains.

My guess is that this won’t stop. In fact, it will be magnified as our economy moves more and more towards winner-take-all markets.

🐵

As a parent with young children, this is something I wrestle with.

From one perspective, I’d like to live in a world where there is equality of opportunity (as distinct from equality of outcome).

From another perspective, I care a lot about my children and their prospects in life. One of the things that motivates my wife and I to work as hard as we do, is to provide them with opportunities in life. Many of these opportunities are relative, or positional, in nature.

If I fully subscribed to my vision of a society with equality of opportunity, I would probably spend less time and energy on my own children and spend more time and energy on the children who have far less advantages.

Having said this, it feels like I would be knee-capping my own children. This wouldn’t be good for them. Arguably, it also wouldn’t be good for society in general. From a selfish perspective, investing in their human capital is likely to result in better outcomes. From a more selfless point of view, it would mean they will be less equipped with skills and knowledge that will help them create value for others.

(From a different perspective, I wonder whether parents wanting to give their children opportunities is a huge reason why adults work as hard as they do. Insisting on a society where all children – and adults – have equality of opportunity would have unintended consequences of discouraging people from working hard and building their capabilities. But I digress. I am sure there is a middle-ground.)

🐵

What I’m ultimately making is yet another argument for investing in our human capital. Investing time and energy in our capabilities is often one of the best investments we can make. It might not show up on a balance sheet, but the rewards – financial and otherwise – can be immense.

🐵

There is something extremely liberating – and motivating – about acknowledging supermonkeys in certain domains.

If you believe in it, you can break the shackles of what others might be able to achieve and focus instead on maximising your own potential.

As Kimo Williams taught Derek Sivers: “the standard pace is for chumps ” – “the system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you’re more driven than most people, you can do way more than anyone expects. And this principle applies to all of life, not just school”.

Ultimately, it makes the exercise of finding what you like, and what likes you , all the more valuable.

Finding your domain isn’t just about identifying what you’re good at – it’s about discovering where your particular combination of skills, interests, and drive can create the most value.

Like a high-performance car, it’s not just about raw power, but finding the right track to race on. (Just as Porsche’s mid-engined Cayman might outperform the more powerful 911 on a twisty road, sometimes the less obvious choice can be the perfect fit for what you value and where you want to go.)

Where can you be a supermonkey? And where will it benefit others the most?

And… what are you waiting for?

VRROOOOOOMMM!!!

🙈🙉🙊