&gt; If you take the article with a bit of salt and step up the generalization ladder, the point is that skill expertise vs time grows exponentially<p>I thought about saying something like this, but after some reflection I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s true.  The shape of skill vs time curves is not always exponential.<p>For instance, take Argentine Tango.  It took me 9 months of consistent 10 hours &#x2F; week practice to even reach a point where I felt comfortable going to the average public social tango event.  In fact, in tango it&#x27;s pretty widely recognized that the learning curve shape is very different for leaders and followers.  For followers it typically looks like [1].  But for leaders it&#x27;s more like [2].  (Time on the x axis, skill on the y axis.)  I really think that in general it&#x27;s probably more like a &quot;multi-hump curve&quot; [3] in the general case.  I had a situation recently where I took one lesson with a tango teacher and in one hour he totally revolutionized my dancing.  And this isn&#x27;t me talking, people I dance with regularly said that.<p>So I don&#x27;t think the rate of progress at a new activity is always exponential or even fastest at the beginning.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;b&#x2F;ba&#x2F;Exponential_cdf.svg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;b&#x2F;ba&#x2F;Exponent...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;8&#x2F;88&#x2F;Logistic-curve.svg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;8&#x2F;88&#x2F;Logistic...</a><p>[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mightybyte.net&#x2F;learning-curve.png" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mightybyte.net&#x2F;learning-curve.png</a>