A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah
This story is especially clear and dramatic (and well documented) but I've often thought this happens in every generation: the people who lead (businesses and nations) when they are in their 40s and 50s are often people who boldly go out and discover the world while they are in their teens and 20s, and so they take on a bit more risk than the average citizen, and this includes physical risk (whether in travel or informal athletics), and so, "at the margins" as an economist would say, a certain percentage of them are dead before they reach the age of 30. So, for every generation, a few of the most brilliant lights are missing by the time the generation reaches its 40s and 50s. The people who do become leaders are, to an extent, the ones who simply got lucky -- many of them have some stories to tell about times they took a risk and were surprised to live. For obvious reasons, we don't hear the stories from the folks who took a risk and did not survive.<p>(One of my favorite anecdotes on this subject: One of the best entrepreneurs I know went down to Mexico and hitchhiked all over when she was 18 years old. And every family that picked her up told her that what she was doing was very dangerous and that she was very lucky to be picked up by that family, instead of someone more dangerous. But at the time she was very innocent. 20 years later I ran into her and I was like "You know what you did was crazy?" and she was like "Now that I think about it, I'm amazed that I survived.")