Success in science depends less on raw intelligence and more on good taste. Knowing what’s a good problem to pursue and understanding your unique strengths determine long-term success.
Podcast: Renaissance Technologies: The Complete History and Strategy
Jim Simons wasn't the best mathematician at MIT. Reflecting on his abilities, he said, "I was a good mathematician. I wasn’t the greatest in the world, but I was pretty good." However, he became immensely influential, perhaps the most influential of his generation.
He recognized early that he had a different advantage that most of the super geniuses lacked: good taste. In his words:
"Taste in science is very important. To distinguish what’s a good problem and what’s a problem that no one’s going to care about the answer to anyway, that’s taste. And I think I have good taste."
Jeff Bezos had a similar realization. He wanted to become a theoretical physicist while he was attending college but noticed his peers who effortlessly outpaced him intellectually. Realizing he couldn’t outmatch the best theoretical physicists, he switched to computer science.
Jim may not have been the Michael Jordan of math, but he was a Hall of Famer. He even has a theorem named after him that became part of the foundation of string theory. But what truly set him apart, especially at MIT in the late 1950s, was how he could move between worlds. He was brilliant, but also cool, charismatic, and relatable. He could speak the language of the super-genius while understanding the world beyond academia. He wasn’t just another mind in the room. He was someone people wanted to follow.
That combination of brains, taste, and people skills, was essential in what would later become the magic behind Renaissance Technologies, the single best performing investment firm of all time.
This reminds me of people who want to be smart oftentimes think being smart and having important new ideas are identical and how [Richard Hamming](https://chengweihu.com/tag/Richard Hamming/) tried to answer "Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run" in You And Your Research.
This also brings to mind Noam Shazeer, co-author of the Transformer paper and founder of Character.ai, who is praised for his research taste in this Dwarkesh podcast episode.