"Also, his case examples are not coding related. "
Nor are they even correct. In fact they can easily be made to prove the opposite of what he claims.
Only someone completely ignorant of soccer/football would claim that this year's FC Barcelona lineup is one of the greatest ever because of their team-based approach - their best player is Lionel Messi, who at 23 is already being considered as one of the greatest players to ever play the game, right up there with Pele, Maradona, etc. He's so much better than not just the average, but even the closest competitor in the Spanish league. Cristiano Ronaldo leads in statistical categories like most goals scored but it's from beating up on weaker teams and he routinely chokes in big games, whereas Messi plays even better, like when he dribbled past half of the Real Madrid team in the Champions League semifinal to score the winning goal. You could've benched Ronaldo and it wouldn't have mattered - benching Messi would've dragged the match back down to more equal terms.
I don't want to transform HN into a sports-related forum, but since The Economist has also written on the subject, I guess I can give it my 2cents...
> Lionel Messi, who at 23 is already being considered as one of the greatest players to ever play the game, right up there with Pele, Maradona, etc
He can dribble, all right, but I'm not the only one who isn't regarding him as "an all time best", simply because he hasn't help his country winning a World Cup final (or even helping it to get there). At 17 Pele was winning the World Cup in Sweden, while Maradona almost single-handedly won the Mexico '86 World Cup for Argentina and helped them reach the final again, 4 years later (not to mention winning the scudetto with Napoli, against possibly the best club-team of all times, Van Basten's AC Milan).
And remember that Barcelona's lineup also includes Andres Iniesta, the man who scored the only goal against the Netherlands in last year's World Cup final, Xavi, Spain's bets man when they won the Euro 2008 Final Tournament, Pedro, David Villa, Alves (one of the best players on his position) ans so on and so on.
I agree that we shouldn't turn this into a sports flame thread, so let's just compromise and say that it's a team-based sport and that individual talent matters, not one or the other (unlike the OP). After all, the same argument about supporting players could be made for Pele and Maradona as well.
I couldn't agree more that his sports analogy is WAY off base. These athletes are all at the top of the top of the top of the top of the world in their sport. And they are getting paid millions. That model runs COMPLETELY against everything he is trying to prove.
However, to what order of magnitude you want to take the discussion can be looked at, 1,000 youth hockey players vs. 5 pros on the ice would be kinda hard to sort though....
As for his investment firm example, I think the who you know, and your firms institutional knowledge play a larger part in that game. So much so that it's not a valid analogy.
Nor are they even correct. In fact they can easily be made to prove the opposite of what he claims.
Only someone completely ignorant of soccer/football would claim that this year's FC Barcelona lineup is one of the greatest ever because of their team-based approach - their best player is Lionel Messi, who at 23 is already being considered as one of the greatest players to ever play the game, right up there with Pele, Maradona, etc. He's so much better than not just the average, but even the closest competitor in the Spanish league. Cristiano Ronaldo leads in statistical categories like most goals scored but it's from beating up on weaker teams and he routinely chokes in big games, whereas Messi plays even better, like when he dribbled past half of the Real Madrid team in the Champions League semifinal to score the winning goal. You could've benched Ronaldo and it wouldn't have mattered - benching Messi would've dragged the match back down to more equal terms.