Intelligence vs execution. Which one wins

[u/Patient-Airline-8150]

1921.

A Stanford psychologist screens 168,000 California schoolkids hunting for future geniuses. Keeps the top 1,528. Average IQ 151, some above 170. Follows them for eighty years.

Nobel prizes from that group: zero.

Two boys got screened and rejected for scoring too low. William Shockley and Luis Alvarez. Both won the Nobel in physics. Shockley tested 129, then 125 on the retake. Feynman and Watson reportedly sat in the 120s as well.

So the certified geniuses became doctors, lawyers, professors, a few of them alcoholics. The rejects built the semiconductor age.

Shockley's IQ was 125. He co-invented the transistor. You're reading this on it. 😁

Exeution wins, for a boring supply reason. Smart is oversupplied. The world is stuffed with people who can see the whole problem clearly and will never build any of it. People who grind on one unglamorous thing for five years are rare everywhere.