The generalized efficient markets (GEM) principle says, roughly, that things which would give you a big windfall of money and/or status, will not be easy. If such an opportunity were available, someone else would have already taken it. You will never find a $100 bill on the floor of Grand Central Station at rush hour, because someone would have picked it up already.
One way to circumvent GEM is to be the best in the world at some relevant skill. A superhuman with hawk-like eyesight and the speed of the Flash might very well be able to snag $100 bills off the floor of Grand Central. More realistically, even though financial markets are the ur-example of efficiency, a handful of firms do make impressive amounts of money by...
I've just read the first part of the article and it is great to see someone writing a thought that I've had myself. If you're skilled in music, you're 1 in a thousand. If you're skilled in programming, you're 1 in a thousand. But if you're skilled in both, you're one in a million.
This fits in with my philosophy of just following your interests with no particular goal in mind. A popular example of this is Steve Jobs in college just taking classes that he was interested in. He took a calligraphy class and that ended up informing the typeface for Apple comput... (read more)