Inequality and the Sergey Brin effect
...A final trend that promotes income inequality is that more Americans may be engaging in a kind of gambling behavior in their choice of occupation. They are increasingly choosing to play in winners-take-most tournaments, such as the contest to build the leading Internet search engine. For every Sergey Brin, there were thousands of software engineers who played in the search-engine contest and lost.
As best-selling writer and investor Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out in The Black Swan, safe occupations are those where the worker is paid a fixed amount per unit of time. An accountant or a nurse is not going to become extremely rich or extremely poor; they could be called “billers,” because they bill for their time. On the other hand, a professional singer or a software entrepreneur is playing in a winners-take-most tournament. The difference in talent between an international pop star and an unknown lounge singer may actually be quite small. However, the nature of these fields is that the difference in rewards can be enormous. People who choose these sorts of occupations could be called “players.”
Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will Favorite posts | Manifold podcast | Twitter: @hsu_steve
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Are you a Biller or a Player?
Excellent article by Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz. "Winner take most" markets, the upper-upper and upper-lower income gaps, and more.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(255)
-
▼
10
(34)
- Is the finance boom over?
- The Laskers and the Go master
- Housing bubble: one third to go
- Greenspan now agrees with Soros; Galbraith intervi...
- Intellectual honesty: how much do we know?
- Everett on Nova
- Incentives and bubble logic
- The joy of Turkheimer
- Modigliani-Miller, RIP
- CDO, CDO-squared and CDS in pictures
- Complexity in the ruins of Lehman
- Factory girls
- Regression to the mean
- Soros speaks the truth
- Godel's theorems and Oliver Stone
- Lehman CDS auction
- Lessons from Japan
- More on Lehman CDS auction
- The subprime primer
- CDS central exchange?
- Nobel Prize in physics 2008
- October CDS auctions and helicopter Ben
- New blog layout
- Fear beats greed
- Mortgage finance in pictures
- Don't blame the quants: Fannie edition
- Dinner with the Econ
- Buffet on the credit crisis
- Are you a Biller or a Player?
- Sign problem in QCD
- Simple question, complex answer
- Historical vol
- Meltdown links
- Trends in social science
-
▼
10
(34)

Labels
- physics (379)
- genetics (305)
- globalization (282)
- finance (268)
- brainpower (265)
- genomics (255)
- technology (240)
- american society (234)
- China (213)
- innovation (195)
- economics (185)
- ai (184)
- psychometrics (174)
- science (167)
- photos (162)
- psychology (159)
- machine learning (148)
- biology (144)
- travel (142)
- universities (133)
- genetic engineering (132)
- higher education (126)
- human capital (120)
- credit crisis (115)
- startups (113)
- iq (106)
- cognitive science (99)
- podcasts (98)
- political correctness (89)
- autobiographical (88)
- careers (85)
- politics (85)
- geopolitics (84)
- statistics (80)
- credit crunch (78)
- elitism (76)
- evolution (76)
- quantum mechanics (75)
- bounded rationality (74)
- gilded age (73)
- social science (73)
- income inequality (72)
- talks (72)
- genius (71)
- history of science (67)
- caltech (64)
- realpolitik (64)
- books (62)
- MSU (60)
- mma (57)
- sci fi (57)
- academia (55)
- biotech (55)
- harvard (54)
- silicon valley (54)
- mathematics (52)
- history (50)
- kids (50)
- education (49)
- intellectual history (49)
- bgi (48)
- cdo (45)
- derivatives (43)
- neuroscience (43)
- behavioral economics (41)
- jiujitsu (41)
- literature (41)
- video (40)
- physical training (39)
- computing (37)
- ufc (37)
- bjj (36)
- bubbles (36)
- film (36)
- mortgages (36)
- google (35)
- economic history (34)
- expert prediction (34)
- many worlds (34)
- affirmative action (33)
- hedge funds (33)
- nuclear weapons (32)
- race relations (31)
- security (31)
- von Neumann (31)
- black holes (30)
- quants (30)
- efficient markets (29)
- feynman (29)
- foo camp (29)
- movies (29)
- sports (29)
- music (28)
- singularity (26)
- entrepreneurs (25)
- housing (25)
- meritocracy (25)
- obama (25)
- subprime (25)
- berkeley (24)
- taiwan (24)
- conferences (23)
- epidemics (23)
- venture capital (23)
- athletics (22)
- quantum field theory (22)
- ultimate fighting (22)
- wall street (22)
- cds (20)
- internet (20)
- blogging (19)
- scifoo (19)
- gender (18)
- goldman sachs (18)
- new yorker (18)
- cryptography (17)
- dna (17)
- freeman dyson (17)
- smpy (17)
- treasury bailout (17)
- university of oregon (17)
- algorithms (16)
- japan (16)
- personality (16)
- privacy (16)
- autism (15)
- christmas (15)
- cosmology (15)
- happiness (15)
- height (15)
- oppenheimer (15)
- Fermi problems (14)
- fitness (14)
- les grandes ecoles (14)
- social networks (14)
- wwii (14)
- chess (13)
- government (13)
- hedonic treadmill (13)
- india (13)
- neanderthals (13)
- probability (13)
- research (13)
- russia (13)
- war (13)
- aspergers (12)
- blade runner (12)
- malcolm gladwell (12)
- net worth (12)
- nobel prize (12)
- nsa (12)
- philosophy of mind (12)
- Einstein (11)
- climate change (11)
- entropy (11)
- geeks (11)
- harvard society of fellows (11)
- pseudoscience (11)
- string theory (11)
- television (11)
- Go (10)
- ability (10)
- art (10)
- cold war (10)
- football (10)
- italy (10)
- mutants (10)
- nerds (10)
- olympics (10)
- complexity (9)
- crossfit (9)
- democracy (9)
- encryption (9)
- energy (9)
- eugene (9)
- flynn effect (9)
- france (9)
- james salter (9)
- pop culture (9)
- turing test (9)
- alan turing (8)
- alpha (8)
- data mining (8)
- dating (8)
- determinism (8)
- games (8)
- keynes (8)
- manhattan (8)
- pca (8)
- philip k. dick (8)
- qcd (8)
- quantum computers (8)
- real estate (8)
- robot genius (8)
- success (8)
- usain bolt (8)
- Iran (7)
- aig (7)
- ashkenazim (7)
- basketball (7)
- environmentalism (7)
- free will (7)
- fx (7)
- game theory (7)
- hugh everett (7)
- new york times (7)
- paris (7)
- patents (7)
- poker (7)
- simulation (7)
- tail risk (7)
- teaching (7)
- volatility (7)
- anthropic principle (6)
- bayes (6)
- class (6)
- drones (6)
- godel (6)
- inequality (6)
- intellectual property (6)
- markets (6)
- nassim taleb (6)
- noam chomsky (6)
- prostitution (6)
- rationality (6)
- academia sinica (5)
- bobby fischer (5)
- econtalk (5)
- fake alpha (5)
- global warming (5)
- information theory (5)
- iraq war (5)
- kasparov (5)
- luck (5)
- nonlinearity (5)
- perimeter institute (5)
- renaissance technologies (5)
- sad but true (5)
- software development (5)
- vietnam war (5)
- warren buffet (5)
- 100m (4)
- Poincare (4)
- bill gates (4)
- borges (4)
- cambridge uk (4)
- censorship (4)
- charles darwin (4)
- creativity (4)
- demographics (4)
- hormones (4)
- humor (4)
- judo (4)
- kerviel (4)
- microsoft (4)
- mixed martial arts (4)
- monsters (4)
- moore's law (4)
- solar energy (4)
- soros (4)
- trento (4)
- 200m (3)
- assortative mating (3)
- babies (3)
- brain drain (3)
- charlie munger (3)
- cheng ting hsu (3)
- chet baker (3)
- correlation (3)
- ecosystems (3)
- equity risk premium (3)
- facebook (3)
- fannie (3)
- feminism (3)
- fst (3)
- intellectual ventures (3)
- jim simons (3)
- language (3)
- lee kwan yew (3)
- lewontin fallacy (3)
- lhc (3)
- magic (3)
- michael lewis (3)
- nathan myhrvold (3)
- neal stephenson (3)
- olympiads (3)
- path integrals (3)
- risk preference (3)
- search (3)
- sec (3)
- sivs (3)
- society generale (3)
- supercomputers (3)
- systemic risk (3)
- thailand (3)
- alibaba (2)
- bear stearns (2)
- bruce springsteen (2)
- charles babbage (2)
- cloning (2)
- computers (2)
- david mamet (2)
- digital books (2)
- donald mackenzie (2)
- drugs (2)
- eliot spitzer (2)
- empire (2)
- exchange rates (2)
- frauds (2)
- freddie (2)
- gaussian copula (2)
- heinlein (2)
- industrial revolution (2)
- james watson (2)
- ltcm (2)
- mating (2)
- mba (2)
- mccain (2)
- mit (2)
- monkeys (2)
- national character (2)
- nicholas metropolis (2)
- no holds barred (2)
- offices (2)
- oligarchs (2)
- palin (2)
- population structure (2)
- prisoner's dilemma (2)
- skidelsky (2)
- socgen (2)
- sprints (2)
- twitter (2)
- ussr (2)
- variance (2)
- virtual reality (2)
- abx (1)
- anathem (1)
- andrew lo (1)
- antikythera mechanism (1)
- athens (1)
- atlas shrugged (1)
- ayn rand (1)
- bay area (1)
- beats (1)
- book search (1)
- bunnie huang (1)
- car dealers (1)
- carlos slim (1)
- catastrophe bonds (1)
- cdos (1)
- ces 2008 (1)
- chance (1)
- children (1)
- cochran-harpending (1)
- cpi (1)
- david x. li (1)
- dick cavett (1)
- dolomites (1)
- dune (1)
- eharmony (1)
- escorts (1)
- faces (1)
- fads (1)
- favorite posts (1)
- fiber optic cable (1)
- francis crick (1)
- gary brecher (1)
- gizmos (1)
- greece (1)
- greenspan (1)
- hypocrisy (1)
- igon value (1)
- iit (1)
- inflation (1)
- information asymmetry (1)
- iphone (1)
- jack kerouac (1)
- jaynes (1)
- jazz (1)
- jfk (1)
- john dolan (1)
- john kerry (1)
- john paulson (1)
- john searle (1)
- john tierney (1)
- jonathan littell (1)
- las vegas (1)
- lawyers (1)
- lehman auction (1)
- les bienveillantes (1)
- lowell wood (1)
- lse (1)
- machine (1)
- mcgeorge bundy (1)
- mexico (1)
- michael jackson (1)
- mickey rourke (1)
- migration (1)
- money:tech (1)
- myron scholes (1)
- netwon institute (1)
- networks (1)
- newton institute (1)
- nfl (1)
- oliver stone (1)
- phil gramm (1)
- philanthropy (1)
- philip greenspun (1)
- portfolio theory (1)
- power laws (1)
- pyschology (1)
- randomness (1)
- recession (1)
- sales (1)
- singapore (1)
- skype (1)
- standard deviation (1)
- star wars (1)
- starship troopers (1)
- students today (1)
- teleportation (1)
- tierney lab blog (1)
- tomonaga (1)
- tyler cowen (1)
- venice (1)
- violence (1)
- virtual meetings (1)
- war nerd (1)
- wealth effect (1)

1 comment:
I'm working on the hedge, where I bill enough to meet the basic needs while I gamble enough to make some headway upwards.
Post a Comment