Pretty much -- for example, I had definitely spent 10k hours each studying biology, chemistry and computer science by the time I reached age 21.
But, all this thinking is in my experience pretty useless in terms of real world results (and I don't mean results like Stanford idolizing you). You're not going to "think" your way into curing cancer no matter how many hours of biology or chemistry you take, and I should know, because I've seen people try. It's pretty hard to "think" up a company the size of Amazon, too, especially in a world where a lot of industry have their Amazon. You need capital and a degree of self-confidence bordering on manic delusion and when you have this you still need to not do what Elizabeth Holmes did and know when you've failed and give up what may have been ten or twenty years or a lifetime and start something else.
It's not the 100k hours. It's the very large odds they will have been for nothing, and picking up whatever is left of your life after.
It's not the 100k hours. It's the very large odds they will have been for nothing, and picking up whatever is left of your life after.
That's an interesting take. But my experience is that there is a non-negligible set of people who would see a lifetime spent working on their chosen problem to be well-spent, even if they don't eventually succeed.
But, all this thinking is in my experience pretty useless in terms of real world results (and I don't mean results like Stanford idolizing you). You're not going to "think" your way into curing cancer no matter how many hours of biology or chemistry you take, and I should know, because I've seen people try. It's pretty hard to "think" up a company the size of Amazon, too, especially in a world where a lot of industry have their Amazon. You need capital and a degree of self-confidence bordering on manic delusion and when you have this you still need to not do what Elizabeth Holmes did and know when you've failed and give up what may have been ten or twenty years or a lifetime and start something else.
It's not the 100k hours. It's the very large odds they will have been for nothing, and picking up whatever is left of your life after.