Talent is more important the more competitive a field is.<p>The bar for being a Doctor, Programmer, Quant, or most other fields is actually fairly low.  What confounds the issue is many things have a random selection process.  The number of girls physically capable of becoming an Olympic gymnast is restricted not just by talent but also by family situations.  Getting the right trainer early is less about talent than luck.<p>So, it’s a question of the talent pool making a serious effort plus how fair the selection process is.  Which is why getting into the NFL in 2015 is vastly harder than it was in 1970. Superstars in 1970 might not even make it into the modern NFL because the talent pool is vastly larger and the number of slots have not increased much.  It&#x27;s not really a question of size, it&#x27;s speed that&#x27;s really changed the game.