Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…Well on that question, when people give their production function, how much do you believe they’re aware of it? Let’s say for a CWT guest, how often do you think this is actually true or this is something they think, but is not the true production function? I don’t think it’s untrue. But I think on average they’re too modest and they’re not quite willing to express their sheer ruthlessness at being successful in a way. And the glee they take in that. So it’s a biased estimate, I would say. Yeah. One of my things that I’m always curious to hear people name in a production function is the people that surround them, the team they’ve built. And sometimes it may be more of a leadership team, but sometimes it might just people who are very good at using producers, say. Or people like administrative assistants and how that plays into people’s production function and allows them to focus on the things that really matter. I know this is something that people talk about in academia some as well — that academics tend to get saddled with a lot of administrative work. But honestly, I think one of the underrated aspects of any person’s production function is the extent to which they can plug into an infrastructure and have certain things just not be a focus of worry for them.…

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