[link] Speed is the New Intelligence

Gunnar_Zarncke

The article really is about speeding up government, but the key point is speed as a component of smart:

A smart friend told me recently that speed is the new intelligence, at least for some types of technology jobs. If you are hiring an interface designer, for example, the one that can generate and test several designs gets you further than the “genius” who takes months to produce the first design to test. When you can easily test alternatives, the ability to quickly generate new things to test is a substitute for intelligence.

This shifts the focus from the ability to grasp and think through very complex topics (includes good working memory and memory recall in general) to the ability new topics quickly (includes quick learning and unlearning, creativity).

Smart people in the technology world no long believe they can think their way to success. Now the smart folks try whatever plan looks promising, test it, tweak it, and reiterate. In that environment, speed matters more than intelligence because no one has the psychic ability to pick a winner in advance. All you can do is try things that make sense and see what happens. Obviously this is easier to do when your product is software based.

This also changes the type of grit needed. The grit to push through a long topic versus the grit try lots of new things and to learn from failures.

From Scott Adams Blog

The article really is about speeding up government, but the key point is speed as a component of smart:

A smart friend told me recently that speed is the new intelligence, at least for some types of technology jobs. If you are hiring an interface designer, for example, the one that can generate and test several designs gets you further than the “genius” who takes months to produce the first design to test. When you can easily test alternatives, the ability to quickly generate new things to test is a substitute for intelligence.

Smart people in the technology world no long believe they can think their way to success. Now the smart folks try whatever plan looks promising, test it, tweak it, and reiterate. In that environment, speed matters more than intelligence because no one has the psychic ability to pick a winner in advance. All you can do is try things that make sense and see what happens. Obviously this is easier to do when your product is software based.

This also changes the type of grit needed. The grit to push through a long topic versus the grit try lots of new things and to learn from failures.

The Law of the Minimum seems metaphorically relevant. "Growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available, but by the scarcest resource."

Intelligence, speed, time, energy, charisma, money, able-bodiedness, a like-minded community, etc.: any of these may be someone's limiting factor.

On the other hand, sometimes one resource can trade off for another. There are a lot of examples of this in computational complexity where one can use up less memory if one is willing to use a slower algorithm or if one is willing to use more memory one can get more speed. These aren't the only examples.

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[link] Speed is the New Intelligence

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[link] Speed is the New Intelligence

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