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That's not true that they come from the brightest people, I'd say that's very much a bias.

Much like how YC often says that the best startup founders aren't necessarily the smartest people in a room. Occasionally, being the very brightest can even be counter-productive because in the end the people who are less smart and realize it will strive to work harder.

And that's what research really is, really hard laborious work. Not this fantasy of someone bright sitting in a chair thinking up discoveries. That's why research is hard.




> That's not true that they come from the brightest people, I'd say that's very much a bias.

[Citation needed]

There are such things as talent, insight and experience but intelligence makes everything easier, from learning new fields and tools to evaluating and formulating new ideas. Ceteris Paribus more intelligence is better.


That's a bit reductionist on something that is inherently non-reductionist: how do you define a good problem worth solving.

I believe you presented a logical leap between having all the tools one could ever dream of <-> delivering scientific impact.

Here's a citation: "scientific impact is a decelerating function of grant funding size".

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....




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