Adrian woollridge had a very good book out last year in defence of n aristocracy. You don't have to believe that you're doing moral aristocracy at every level. If you support the more ambitious 17 year old who wants to do computational biology, you're not committing to the proposition that they're a better human being. But at the end of the day, you want to cure diseases, and you not to limit pandemics and so on.
How do you hone your craft on an everyday basis? It could be writing, meeting with experts, even listening to podcasts, just so long, argues economist and blogger Tyler Cowen, as it makes you better at what you already do. Perhaps more than anything else, he believes, it's practice that divides middle managers from founders, and mere good hires from the creative obsessives who end up transforming the world. Join Cowen and EconTalk host Russ Roberts for a conversation about Talent, Cowen's new book on how (and how not) to identify the talented. Hear Cowen explain why, for high-level positions, unstructured interviews are important, why stamina is usually preferable to grit, and why credentials are largely a relic of the past.