I look at the resumes of people like Alexandr Wang, who seems to have a Midas touch of brilliance in everything he worked on. Or Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, etc. These people are all geniuses as evidenced by their very early, unambiguous competence in highly advanced, technical fields. I did well in high school, went to a good engineering school, but when I started getting into hard classes I could feel my brain "hitting a wall". Even stuff like dynamic programming took me way longer than it seemed reasonable to fully understand.
Besides these 1/10000000 billionaires, it seems that even just most people working in FAANG really are on another level. I remember the OpenAI application question: "Please provide an example or evidence of your exceptional ability." I have no idea, even if I had unlimited time to work hard on something I found very interesting, if anything I could do could reach a level worthy of that designation.
3 years into working in software engineering and I feel very confident that I am only minorly more skilled than I was when I started. How do these people get to this sort of hypersonic level before they're even 20? Is it IQ? Spending their free time more wisely? Better organization? Being able to choose what jobs/problems to work on wisely to maximize non-trivial impact?
I feel that, entering my mid 20s, my chance to have demonstrated any sort of capability beyond the median has passed me by. It's not horrible, I have a job, some friends, I understand tech news and can "get" the things going on in AI, but it seems that for entering the realm of doing stuff that actually matters, there is a glass-ceiling of brain power that I imagine I and most software engineers won't be able to break through.
Does anyone have hope that there are ways out of this, or coping mechanisms for those who have accepted their lot in this field?
Second, you're focused on the most successful person out of a billion. I assume you don't lie awake at night wondering why you weren't the one lottery winner out of a billion, so why worry that your career hasn't eclipsed that of Zuck or Gates or Wang?
My advice is to get out of the bubble. Visit some small towns and eat dinner with the locals. Go to a 3rd world country for a month. To them, you're the rich guy that makes them feel some type of way.
The ones you named would never ask such questions but rather pursue opportunities and optimize skills out of curiosity. I also think, they've invested a lot of their leisure time into building their dream or vision. Actually all the these guys never rest. They get bored and do something. They're nerds.
So, not everyone is made to be an entrepreneur. It's hard work. And a personality thing. If you don't own such properties, then you also won't excel in such things, regarded "successful".
They way around, what do you have what they don't? It's "Simpler times and living".
Are you ready to work without breaks and weekends in you spare time? Then you might become really good. If not, change your job and perspective. Try to follow your plan. Peace
You really don't think Zuckerberg was simply someone who got lucky by building the right thing at the right time and tripping onto gold? Even if you want to credit him as a business or product genius, and not merely of luck, he certainly wasn't highly competent in some bleeding edge section of tech.
I think a lot of us have the same problem you are describing, but you're thinking is warped in many ways, so you seem to be experiencing it to a greater degree.
> I remember the OpenAI application question: "Please provide an example or evidence of your exceptional ability."
I don't apply to jobs that ask that kind of question. Absolute douchebaggery.