Assuming your expected success as a startup founder can be modeled as a linear combination of various characteristics you have, there is probably going to be a single characteristic with the largest coefficient.
Regarding the smart people example, it might be that a single heuristic that looks for the presence or absence of a specific gene really does do the best job classifying people. Regarding the pop song example, there might be some measure of an artist’s musical ability that does the best job. We are looking for the factors that are causative.
Assuming your expected success as a startup founder can be modeled as a linear combination of various characteristics you have, there is probably going to be a single characteristic with the largest coefficient.
Regarding the smart people example, it might be that a single heuristic that looks for the presence or absence of a specific gene really does do the best job classifying people. Regarding the pop song example, there might be some measure of an artist’s musical ability that does the best job. We are looking for the factors that are causative.