The comparison with elite athletes also jumped to my mind. Mature champions could be good advisors to young champions, but probably not to people with very different profiles and capacities, facing difficulties or problems they never considered, etc. We imagine that because people like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos succeeded with their companies, they are some kind of universal geniuses and prophets. However, it is also quite possible that if these same people were appointed (anonymously or under a pseudonym, without the benefit of their image, contacts, or fortune, etc.) to lead a small family-owned sawmill in the remote parts of Manitoba, in a sector and socio-economic environment very different from anything they have known, they might not necessarily do better than the current managers, or even, significantly, might do worse. We too often overlook the fact that successful people are not just individuals with potential, but also those who found themselves in the right place at the right time, allowing them to fully express their potential. A kind of alignment of the stars, a mix of chance and necessity, somewhat like the theory of evolution, where an individual combined a good genetic heritage, a favorable environment, and luck in their interactions, resulting in considerable offspring
The comparison with elite athletes also jumped to my mind. Mature champions could be good advisors to young champions, but probably not to people with very different profiles and capacities, facing difficulties or problems they never considered, etc. We imagine that because people like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos succeeded with their companies, they are some kind of universal geniuses and prophets. However, it is also quite possible that if these same people were appointed (anonymously or under a pseudonym, without the benefit of their image, contacts, or fortune, etc.) to lead a small family-owned sawmill in the remote parts of Manitoba, in a sector and socio-economic environment very different from anything they have known, they might not necessarily do better than the current managers, or even, significantly, might do worse. We too often overlook the fact that successful people are not just individuals with potential, but also those who found themselves in the right place at the right time, allowing them to fully express their potential. A kind of alignment of the stars, a mix of chance and necessity, somewhat like the theory of evolution, where an individual combined a good genetic heritage, a favorable environment, and luck in their interactions, resulting in considerable offspring