data.

this is a rant for anyone who genuinely believes that some people are just “born smarter” than them or are just more “intelligent”.

that’s just bullshit. people claiming this or even who quietly believe it — are usually just trying to justify why someone else is ahead and use it as a coping mechanism to make themselves feel good.

my ideology here: you and basically every human on this planet are a LLM (Large Language Model) wired differently and trained on different datasets.

in short i’m trying to say is that all of your decisions, how “smart” you are, how good you are at things, how fast you think, how well you solve problems - all of it comes down to how much good data you’ve been exposed to in life (i’m gonna use the term ‘data’ instead of ‘exposure’ for the rest of this)

in grade four there might have been this one kid in your class who everyone considered super smart and this kid was already doing calculus in elementary school. “they’re just naturally smart.” no they’re not. they probably just had a parent or sibling who exposed them to that stuff early. they’ve just seen more. done more. they’ve got more data. that’s the only reason they looked “ahead.”

i don’t buy this idea that some people are just inherently smarter. no one is. they’ve just had more relevant data at the right time.

let me explain

your “intelligence” or “smartness” (both these terms are made up and i hate it whenever someone use them) is dependent on two things:

1. how present you are in that particular moment (aka you’re not lost in the past or future)
2. all the data you have been exposed to till date (in short your exposure in life) - mainly this

it’s merely a combination of these two. nothing else.

no one is really “smarter” than you - it’s only a result of them being exposed to a lot more data than you do at that given moment.

(i’m going to be using the metric “how good someone is at something” instead of “smart” or “intelligent” cause these words have no meaning and are used wrongly in society but in reality the meaning is very subjective - my friend Hardeep has defined it really well here)

you might argue against how is your data (exposure) relevant to someone being good at something?

consider this:

let’s say we’ve got two people — x and y.

x was born into an affluent family. since childhood, they’ve been eating at great restaurants, traveling, trying new things — so naturally, they’ve developed a really good sense of what good food is. they’ve collected years of data without even realizing it.

y, on the other hand, grew up in a family where having food on the table every night wasn’t guaranteed. trying different cuisines or traveling wasn’t even on the table.

if you had to trust someone's opinion on good food, you'd obviously trust x, simply because x has had more exposure—more data. But does that make x inherently better or smarter as a person? No, they're both human beings. It's just about having more data.

think of it this way: if you’re preparing for a test, the more you study and practice, the more data you're building up in your brain. The more data you have, the better you're going to perform. It’s really as straightforward as that.

but let’s say now the person you think is really “smart” (in this context think of how society uses the term “smart”) gets thrown into a test on something they’ve never even heard of before—like zero clue, no context, nothing. in that case, it doesn’t matter how “smart” you thought they were, they’re not gonna be able to answer anything. why? because they literally have zero data on it.

that’s the whole point i’m trying to make—there’s no such thing as “smartness” or “intelligence” in the way people love to romanticize it. these are just labels. at the end of the day, it all comes down to how much data you’ve collected on something over time. the person with more reps, more exposure, more data—wins. that’s it. which also means that if you wanna get good at anything, you just need to keep collecting data. over and over - it’s that straightforward and has no prerequisites. that’s the whole game.

some more examples

Alcaraz started playing tennis when he was 4. he’s not some gifted prodigy or whatever people like to say. no one is. he’s just been playing since forever, so he’s stacked up a ridiculous amount of tennis data. that’s it. by the time he was 15, turning pro was just the natural next step — not because he was special, but because he had that much data from playing constantly. in tennis it usually takes years to reach that point, so the earlier you start, the sooner you get there. but that doesn’t mean you can’t start later — it just means you’ll need to collect more data in less time. play more. learn more. that’s literally all it is.

same thing with Tom Cruise. never went to acting school. he just watches movies every single day. he’s obsessed. all his data comes from watching and studying movies nonstop. and now he’s one of the best producers out there. and here’s the key: he likes collecting the data. watching movies doesn’t feel like a chore to him — it’s what he loves. if collecting data feels like a burden to you, then you’re in the wrong game. someone who actually enjoys the process will always outpace you. and that’s why most people stay mediocre — they’re forcing it while someone else is obsessed.

the whole point i’m trying to make is that you should be datamaxxing 24/7. no one is smarter than you. no one’s better than you. the only edge anyone has is the amount of data they’ve collected — and that’s something anyone can get with time. it’s not magic. it’s not talent. it’s just reps.

so what’s the best way to get good data?

honestly, it doesn’t matter how you get it. if you’re in a good college and somehow getting good data there — great. if working at a startup gets you better data faster — go do that. there is no right path. the only question you should be asking is: what do you consider good data, and where can you get the most of it in the least amount of time?

that’s the game. everything else is noise. if you’re not actively figuring out how to get better data, faster — then don’t complain when someone else outpaces you. they’re not smarter. they’re just ahead on data.

I mention school and work here cause the fastest way to collect data is not from books or lectures but from people around you. why do you think people put so much emphasis on good colleges? to get a piece of paper after you graduate? nobody gives a shit about that. to learn from lectures? you can literally find them on youtube - the entire purpose of you going to college or a being in place with ambitious people is that you always learn the fastest from people not from sitting in the classroom. (if you can figure out a way to find people outside college then that’s way better which is the case nowdays - ideally in tech you will find the smartest people at startups rather than colleges)

same with work. if you don’t really work with the best and most ambitious people - there is no point being there - you’re just wasting your time. don’t work for a title or for stuff that will look good on your resume unless your only goal in life is to seek external validation from people and you don’t believe in yourself at all. if that’s the case then yeah surely go work at Google.

no one’s born good at anything. if you want to get good, you need good data — a lot of it. and the faster you collect it, the faster you get good. the only way you’ll collect it fast is if you actually enjoy the thing you’re collecting data on. if you don’t even like the game, you’re never going to win it.

why do you really need all of this data?

because just like an LLM — the more context you have, the better your output gets. that’s literally what better decision making is: more data → better calls.

and the best, fastest way to collect that data? meet new people. talk to people way better than you. work with people who are ambitious, obsessed, borderline delusional. there is no better way than this

it’s all just data. keep datamaxxing. that’s the whole game.

Peace

VJ