The Importance of Being Incredible

Few things are simultaneously more impressive and disappointing to me than the phenomenon of a “power law”. The idea is that a networked and global economy shrinks the barriers of both control and obedience to nothing, so a powerful person can influence scores of people far beyond their physical reach, and others can follow, in obedience or idolization, the actions of the powerful from afar. It impresses me with its potential; disappoints with its elusiveness.

You see, once I get my act together and actually know what I’m talking about, I’d like to be the beneficiary of one of those power laws, like IDEO, Microsoft, or even Stanford. They innovated and industries formed around them, so at the beginning they were the biggest in this new field. By being biggest, they defined themselves as the leaders. As leaders, they grew even bigger. The web has its own power law beneficiaries, sometimes known as BNBs, like Kottke, Wil Wheaton, and Instapundit. By getting in early and being big in a linked economy, they just keep getting bigger.

For these folks, the power law is great. It funnels traffic and business to them at an exponentially-growing rate, despite their work quality improving at a much more linear speed. No one can get ten times better at their job in a week; but with good publicity, you could book ten times the clients.

So while their work is only moderately better than everyone else’s, they get the lion’s share of the reward. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? In a perfect economy, each person would get the precise amount of credit they deserved, giving young talented workers the same opportunity as the old average workers they easily match in ability. It’s not a perfect economy though, and even if it were, “intangible” qualities like personality, diversity, and friendship will always influence decisions.

There is another law, similar to the power law, that has recently been unearthed and is equally impressive and disappointing. This is the idea of the “irreplaceable person”. These people are so exceptional at what they do that no number of lesser talents can equal their singular ability. One example of this is displayed in the book Moneyball, by Michael Lewis. A book superficially about the Oakland As baseball team, it chronicles their ability to field a successful team on a tiny budget. One thing essential to this was figuring out exactly what actions contributed to winning baseball games — for instance, a sacrifice fly in the right situation may be better than a triple in another, or a strikeout of Murderer’s Row could offset giving up a home run earlier. Paul DePodesta of the As makes sense of all these statistics, and his insights on the process are invaluable.

DePodesta is probably himself one of those “irreplaceable people” — we’ll find out soon enough, as he has moved to the Los Angeles Dodgers to help them find diamonds in the rough.

There are people like this in every profession, but sports bring out the superstar talents most often. CNN recently profiled the people who push the limits of human ability, concluding that some people defy nature:

“It’s hard to explain how they can do that because if you take the numbers that we know from medical school, it just shouldn’t happen,” said Dr. Kenneth Kamler, author of Surviving the Extremes, a chronicle of his medical adventures in treacherous locales such as the Amazon and Mount Everest. “But it does happen. It happens in every kind of human activity. People exceed what you would calculate as their limits.”

More importantly for competition, people exceed what other people’s limits are. My cycling team, Webcor, recently went from just pack filler to the leaders of the field after signing Chris Horner, America’s top domestic cyclist. It turns out that while my teammates are not capable of winning big pro races themselves, they are entirely able to support a leader’s win. Horner is incredible, and everyone else is adequate. The Moneyball of cycling…

I know a number of incredible people, in all walks of life. While none of them can carry a team, they can certainly lead one and inspire others to support them. The lesson here is to spend whatever it takes, sacrifice quantity for quality, to get that one special person who brings you to the next level. Talent also acts like a power law, and if you accept that you are prepared to reap the benefits of the popularity that follows.