Andrew Chen

Nice article about Kevin Murphy, a UChicago economist: Murphy’s Law.

My favorite quote:

When Murphy won the MacArthur, a writer for the GSB student paper asked
him how to distinguish between a genius and a really smart person. “A
really smart person will come up with what you would come up with,”
Murphy answered, “only faster. A genius will come up with something
that you would never come up with, no matter how long you worked on it.”

I know a couple people like this, and it is amazing when you see them tackle a problem. It becomes immediately clear that you could have spent months or years on the problem and wouldn’t have gotten to the same novel answer.