Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World

The results were clear: high-IQ individuals in general cooperated more in these games, and IQ mattered the most in games where there were trade-offs between short-run goals and longer-run considerations. The researchers put it this way: in this situation, “intelligence matters substantially more in the long run than other factors and personality tr

If you are creating a start-up, or otherwise building an institution from scratch, and hiring a whole team, various markers of talent—including intelligence and cooperativeness—will matter much more. Hiring a whole batch of very smart people has the potential to create strongly positive, dynamic, nonlinear benefits.

Sturdiness is the quality of getting work done every day, with extreme regularity and without long streaks of non-achievement. Sturdiness seems to be especially valuable in people working on longer-term projects. There is also evidence that sturdiness helps people make it through military training and also helps with jobs that involve high-stress m

It is different if you are from the middle or bottom tiers of your sector. In that case, not everyone will want to work with you, and perhaps most people won’t want to work with you, as they will be hoping for something better, whether realistically or not. If you are in this position, as many of us are, you need to think especially carefully about

If you are hiring a writer, look for signs that the person is writing literally every day. If you are hiring an executive, try to discern what they are doing all the time to improve their abilities at networking, decision making, and knowledge of the sectors they work in. In general, how open is a person to absorbing new ideas? Receiving critical f

This curiosity is about models, frameworks, cultural understandings, disciplines, and methods of thought, the kinds of traits that made John Stuart Mill such a great thinker and writer. A more recent example is Patrick Collison, CEO and co-founder of Stripe (and also an active writer). His content can draw from economics, science, history, Irish cu

“Which of your beliefs are you least rational about?” “What views do you hold almost irrationally?”

Sam Altman: It’s easiest if you get to meet people in person, several times. If you meet someone three times in three months, and notice detectable improvement each time, pay attention to that. The rate of improvement is often more important than the current absolute ability (in particular, younger founders can sometimes improve extremely quickly).

While intelligence is, of course, a good thing, Marc argues that, all other factors equal, the more important qualities in a hire are drive, self-motivation, curiosity, and ethics.