Talent Trumps Products

From the beginning, as I helped my daughter with her math homework and tests, I encouraged her, and guided her, on learning the underlying principles and concepts.  She had to solve several problems on a regular basis, so this was our focus. Making sure she completed what she had to, for her class, and making sure she did well on her tests.

But regardless of what section in her book we were working on, we kept an ongoing effort to learn those principles and concepts. Once she grasped these, I told her, she could solve a thousand problems easily. In fact, it didn’t matter how many problems she had to solve. As long as she understood what she had to do, essentially, she could solve them all.

Kevin Rose, right, now with Google (image credit)

All of this as a preamble for speaking to what Google, Twitter and Facebook are doing, of late, as CNN Money reported. Anyone with cash can acquire any company that is within their means. It’s the products, tools and systems, then, which are the spoils of victory. But acquiring the talent behind all of these spoils is an even greater letter to write home about. The brains inside those talented people, and their motivation, ability, and energy (MAE), can conceivably create more of those cool products.

A few key people, then, newly gathered under wing, can come up with a much greater number of products, tools and systems, than even big companies can afford, but which are an imperative to the likes of Google, Twitter and Facebook.

Polynomials are among the most complex in math, certainly for a great majority of 7th graders. But my daughter, one among students at this grade, clearly has a knack for polynomials. More importantly, as I told her, she’s been grasping those underlying principles and concepts more and more, and in doing so built up her fundamental abilities to grasp newer, more complex math.

What’s the connection here?

I am juxtaposing my daughter with Kevin Rose, founder of Digg and Milk, who is the latest talent acquisition by Google. You see, it’s about helping her build her own talent, because it is this which will help her grasp and do many more cool, complex things in her life.

Oh, by the way, for a girl who was struggling with math, and hating it, she now has a running A+ average grade for this quarter, and has not been getting anything less than an A- in her tests in recent weeks.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD