It would be cool if we could get more than 1% of the working population into the top 1% of earners, for sure. But, we cannot. The question then becomes, how much of what a top 1% earner earns is because they are productive in an absolute sense (they generate $x in revenue for their employer/business), vs. being paid to them because they are the (relative) best at what they do, and so they have more bargaining power?
Increasing people’s productivity will likely raise earnings. Helping people get into the top 1% relative to others, just means someone else is not in the top 1%, who counterfactually would have been. Your post conflates the two a bit, and doesn’t make the distinction between returns to relative position vs. returns to absolute productivity, measuring a “home run” as getting into the top x%, rather than achieving a specified earnings level.
If I look past that, I agree with the ideas you present for increasing productivity and focusing on making sure high-potential individuals achieve more of their potential. But… I am somewhat leery of having a government bureaucracy decide who is high potential and only invest in them. It might make more sense, given the returns on each high potential individual and the relatively small costs to making sure everyone has access to the things they would need to realize their potential, to just invest in everyone, as a strategy aimed at not missing any home runs.
Hey @Myron Hedderson, thanks for reading and for the thoughtful comment!
The 1% in this article is just a proxy for that level of success—we claim is that we can grow the number of people who achieve the level of success typically seen in the top 1%, not that we can literally grow the 1%. Productivity and the economy isn’t zero sum, so elevating some doesn’t mean bumping others down (although I acknowledge that there are some fields where relative success is a driver of earnings).
I agree I could have been more clear about this a little bit, and I considered it—I just thought it was a bit of a distraction from the core point. Maybe I was wrong :) I appreciate the feedback.
“I am somewhat leery of having a government bureaucracy decide who is high potential and only invest in them.” − 100% agree with this point. I see this mostly as pushing for a better way of allocating efforts and budgets that are already being spent, but I like your framing around marking sure “everyone has access” instead of picking winners.
It would be cool if we could get more than 1% of the working population into the top 1% of earners, for sure. But, we cannot. The question then becomes, how much of what a top 1% earner earns is because they are productive in an absolute sense (they generate $x in revenue for their employer/business), vs. being paid to them because they are the (relative) best at what they do, and so they have more bargaining power?
Increasing people’s productivity will likely raise earnings. Helping people get into the top 1% relative to others, just means someone else is not in the top 1%, who counterfactually would have been. Your post conflates the two a bit, and doesn’t make the distinction between returns to relative position vs. returns to absolute productivity, measuring a “home run” as getting into the top x%, rather than achieving a specified earnings level.
If I look past that, I agree with the ideas you present for increasing productivity and focusing on making sure high-potential individuals achieve more of their potential. But… I am somewhat leery of having a government bureaucracy decide who is high potential and only invest in them. It might make more sense, given the returns on each high potential individual and the relatively small costs to making sure everyone has access to the things they would need to realize their potential, to just invest in everyone, as a strategy aimed at not missing any home runs.
Hey @Myron Hedderson, thanks for reading and for the thoughtful comment!
The 1% in this article is just a proxy for that level of success—we claim is that we can grow the number of people who achieve the level of success typically seen in the top 1%, not that we can literally grow the 1%. Productivity and the economy isn’t zero sum, so elevating some doesn’t mean bumping others down (although I acknowledge that there are some fields where relative success is a driver of earnings).
I agree I could have been more clear about this a little bit, and I considered it—I just thought it was a bit of a distraction from the core point. Maybe I was wrong :) I appreciate the feedback.
“I am somewhat leery of having a government bureaucracy decide who is high potential and only invest in them.” − 100% agree with this point. I see this mostly as pushing for a better way of allocating efforts and budgets that are already being spent, but I like your framing around marking sure “everyone has access” instead of picking winners.