Vishal Talasani

Last year I had a conversation with someone who majored in physics at UChicago. He initially started in math & thought he was prepared having taken AP Calculus BC, but he got smacked in the face by the level of abstraction and proof-writing ability that was assumed. He couldn't keep up with his classmates who had already done proofs while taking even MORE advanced courses in high school. So he switched to physics where proofs were less frequent & the playing field felt more level in terms of prior knowledge that classmates had coming in. He would have liked to study math if he had more time to catch up, or if he knew earlier how far behind he was – but he did great in his high school math classes & was recognized as one of the "smart kids," so he never suspected he was actually behind the curve. Zooming out, this case study is representative of a general phenomenon that can sneak up on you when you’re at, say, the 99th percentile of a skill. At first, you’re exceptional enough that you receive praise from virtually everyone, and you may never go head-to-head with someone who can beat you. That is, until you join some specialized program where everyone is at the 99.9th percentile – where, suddenly, you’re the worst one there. And here’s the real kicker: if it’s a time-sensitive program, you may be so far behind that it’s infeasible to catch up. If you knew the caliber of these people earlier, you could have spent time working harder to join their ranks in the 99.9th percentile… but that moment has passed, and now the door is closed on this opportunity.

feels like the stock market is where dumb money is today, while the only remaining ppl onchain are battle-tested survivors of brutal bear markets and rug pulls. choose ur table wisely.