Theodore Schwartz: prediction

Transcript context

…How do you think about your own production function, so to speak? You have, what, 500 articles, 200 book chapters, 7 textbooks. One of my readers calculated that’s a paper or a chapter every two weeks for the last 35 years, plus all these operations. How is it you do it? What’s your secret? I think you become more efficient at things as you get older because you become better at them. An operation that would take me eight hours ten years ago takes me four hours now, and then three hours. You also have people who help you. If I’m writing a paper, I have a resident, and I may say “I have an idea for a paper. Why don’t you write the paper and send me the rough draft? Here’s the data.” If I have six or seven of those people who are writing papers for me based on my ideas and giving me a rough draft, and then I have to edit it and make sure that the data is correct and help them with the introduction, the discussion, you can be much more efficient because you have people who are helping you. When you start your career, you don’t have those people under you who are helping you. Once you’ve proven that you can write a lot of papers, then you get contacted by millions of people who say, “Hey, I want to write a paper with you” because they know that you can get it done. I say, “Great, I have a great idea. You realize that idea. I will help you write it.” Then it allows you to multiply yourself by having people who work with you on what you do. Do you still play music?…

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