Tyler Cowen & Daniel Gross - Identifying Talent

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best.
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**SPEAKER_3** (1:48)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:13)
My guests today are Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross. Tyler is an economics professor and creator of one of the most popular economics blogs on the internet. Daniel is the founder of Startup Accelerator Pioneer, having previously been a director at Apple and a partner at Y Combinator.
Both Daniel and Tyler are prolific talent spotters, and that is the focus of our discussion and their new book, which is called Talent. Please enjoy this conversation with Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross.
Tyler and Daniel, I just a few days ago finished your fantastic new book on talent. I think it's a topic that everyone is implicitly interested in and is incredibly important in the modern world. And I think we have to begin our conversation since we'll go into lots of facets of this topic with some basic ground leveling definitions. So I'd love for each of you, maybe Tyler starting with you, to just give what your definition is of talent having now investigated this topic so much so that you're able to write a book about it.

**Tyler Cowen** (3:07)
We treat talent as having a creative energy that can alter outcomes and make projects better in ways that matter.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:14)
Daniel, would you define it any way different?

**Daniel Gross** (3:16)
I think it's very related and thank you of course for having us on. We're honored to be here. I think it is the ability ultimately to positively manipulate whatever current environment you're in to achieve your desired outcome.
There's many different ways of doing that. Some people do that by intellect. Some people do that by charisma. Some people do that by physical strength, but that is ultimately, I think the basic definition of talent.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:37)
How do you think about the difference between means and ends when it comes to talent specifically, if both of you mentioned something kind of around the ability to shift the environment in which you're in or affect some ends, some goals, some outcomes, some achievement, maybe others are just really good at doing something, they're talented at something without a goal in mind. What did you learn or think about means versus ends when assessing talent?

**Tyler Cowen** (3:59)
I look for people who really value the means. So if someone says to you, I wanna be the best drummer of all time. Well, that's definitely better than no ambition at all. But I actually wanna hear someone saying, I love to drum.
And that's the person who's more likely to become the best drummer of all time.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (4:16)
Daniel, I'm curious what you think about this idea of Diet Coke. I asked for strange theories or little things that you discovered as ideas. What is this Diet Coke idea and why is that relevant?