Paul Graham on Conversations with Tyler
<i>Why is there not more ambition in the developed world? Say we wanted to boost ambition by 2X. What’s the actual constraint? What stands in the way?</i><p>Here's a guess: where it once was possible to be a one person wunderkind in scientific discovery or business, it no longer is.<p>Great achievements have become <i>team sports</i>. You need multiple experts in disparate skillsets to achieve a huge business or great discovery.<p>Anyone smart enough to have that kind of ambition is also probably smart enough to realize that it's a huge undertaking, and huge enough that they can't do it themselves.<p>It also likely comes with the parallel realization (or fear) that what drives their ambition is maybe not enough to get others to join their team.<p>I know that holds me back in my ambitions. It's hard to convince others you have the right ideas, and that they are worth working on.