Look for high talent and high agency

One way to Focus on people is to identify people with both high talent and high agency.

High talent is in fact reasonably common. There are lots of smart people out there, people who have some high level of skill in some area. Superstar developers, 10X employees, etc. Big tech is full of these people. There are lots of people out there with high agency, as defined as ability and orientation toward making things happen. Those people are not always working on high impact projects, but they exist nonetheless.

However, the intersection of the two – high talent and high agency – is relatively rare. I know this because I meet people every day with loads of talent but without that special, Elon Musk style agency – a go-getter attitude, a willingness to break through walls, etc.

Of all the ways in which someone can spike, talent and agency are probably the two most important.