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Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World

Tyler Cowen,

Daniel Gross

3.67 · Rating details · 230 ratings · 46 reviews

The art and science of talent search: how to spot, assess, woo, and retain highly talented people.

How do you find talent with a creative spark? To what extent can you predict human creativity, or is human creativity something irreducible before our eyes, perhaps to be spotted or glimpsed by intuition, but unique each time it appears?

Obsessed with these questions, renowned ...more

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Hardcover, 288 pages

Published May 17th 2022 by St. Martin's Press

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Jun 25, 2022 Sebastian Gebski rated it really liked it

Yet another book that is gaining a lot of publicity these days.

I have to admit my initial impression was positive - I haven't made that many notes (while reading a book) for quite a long time. But the problem with "Talent: How to ..." is that it's primarily supposed to inspire, so frequently the author gets a bit "detached from reality".

I understand the criticism of behavioral methods - regardless of many successful companies openly admitting it's a foundation of their method. But "what have you ...more

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May 19, 2022 Andrey Goder rated it it was ok

To be honest this reads like it was generated via GPT-3 trained on Marginal Revolution posts.

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May 26, 2022 Fin Moorhouse rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2022, audible

The thesis of this book is that the world can and should do better to find talent, and failing to identify talent has large but mostly silent costs (analogous to restrictions on immigration, or some kinds of discrimination). I found that really compelling.

I enjoyed the unusual interview question ideas. Paraphrasing some:

What is it you do to train that is comparable to a pianist practicing scales?

What browser tabs do you currently have open?

How hard do you work?

What mainstream belief do you think ...more

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Mar 28, 2022 Chris Boutté rated it it was amazing

I was highly skeptical of this book, but after reading it, I legitimately think it needs to be mandatory reading for anyone involved in hiring. Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross wrote a book that is about as close to perfect as you can get destroying conventional wisdom about hiring. As someone who has been lower-middle-class my whole life, but I work my ass off, I’ve always hated the mindless process of how applications and interviews go. Too often employers won’t even consider you if you don’t chec I was highly skeptical of this book, but after reading it, I legitimately think it needs to be mandatory reading for anyone involved in hiring. Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross wrote a book that is about as close to perfect as you can get destroying conventional wisdom about hiring. As someone who has been lower-middle-class my whole life, but I work my ass off, I’ve always hated the mindless process of how applications and interviews go. Too often employers won’t even consider you if you don’t check certain boxes on an application, but Cowen and Gross are looking to change that.

The book dives into so many different nuances about hiring people and finding the right people. Because people are complex, and there’s much more under the surface (Crazy, right?!). Cowen and Gross give tips for better interviews and what to look for in candidates as well as identifying potential. They also dive into various pros and cons of different personalities and even have a section about interviewing online or over the phone.

By far, the best parts of this book are toward the end when they discuss hiring people with “disabilities”. The authors hate even using the word “disability” because they recognize that people with different brains excel in certain areas. They mainly dive into people on the autism spectrum, but they also touch on some other mental “illnesses” like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. As a recovering drug addict who has been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, I’ve been a huge advocate for mental health and try to educate people about this as well. So, I’m glad they took the time to dive into this as well as a chapter on women, minorities, and the biases that play into the hiring process.

If I had a gun to my head and had to give a criticism, it’s one that I have with most books when the target audience is the corporate world; it’s mainly anecdotal evidence. It’s not bad anecdotal evidence, and they actually touch on more studies than most books in this realm, but I wish there were more. They could probably do a completely different book really diving into the research mentioned throughout the book.

So, if you’re a hiring manager, recruiter, work in HR, or are even hiring freelancers, get this book. So many people need to read this book, and I really hope it gets a ton of attention so we can shift the hiring culture to provide more people with great opportunities.
...more

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Jun 25, 2022 bubble butt book lover rated it did not like it

Shelves: giveaways

Talent was an excellent read in that it well outlined how to find and search for talent, where to search for talent, as well as strategies and techniques right down to possible interview questions to ask, which would likely be at least semi-useful for people involved in business or hiring if it weren't written in such a stereotypical venture capitalist #entrepeneur4life type of way. It also seems as though it pushes on the idea that you have to have some sort of creative or out-of-the-box way of ...more

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Jun 22, 2022 Ryan rated it really liked it

How should we think about Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross's Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World?

At first glance, this is a book about finding and hiring talent aimed primarily at start up entrepreneurs. In this sense, entrepreneurs and people on hiring committees seem like a better audience for this book than I am.

More broadly, Cowen and Gross seek to chip away at the bureaucratized HR style search for workers. If everyone knows "tell me about a weakness of y How should we think about Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross's Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World?

At first glance, this is a book about finding and hiring talent aimed primarily at start up entrepreneurs. In this sense, entrepreneurs and people on hiring committees seem like a better audience for this book than I am.

More broadly, Cowen and Gross seek to chip away at the bureaucratized HR style search for workers. If everyone knows "tell me about a weakness of yours," is that question revealing a lot about the candidate or only that they're well prepared. Sometimes, preparation counts for a lot, but not always, Cowen and Gross argue.

More broadly still, Cowen and Gross are chipping away at the aspect of the culture that is aiming to make everyone "good enough." This phrase could include a lot of things, ranging from public school to credentialism. A "good enough" ethos aims to raise the floor, even if it's at the expense of raising the ceiling. A "good enough" ethos is probably a bit skeptical of many conventional meritocratic arguments that excuse income inequality. A "good enough" applicant might wish to become a professor to publish some journal articles and get tenure, but to Cowen this would be a waste of space. We should organize society so that people feel incentivized to set the loftiest of goals and we should do this not only for individuals but also for our communities.

For Cowen, and presumably Gross, material equality is less important than productivity. In Stubborn Attachments, Cowen argues that almost everything we care about correlates with strong economic growth and so growth should be a moral imperative. In other words, we should always be trying to improve our productivity. I doubt anyone thinks of HR (or any bureaucracy) as a bastion of productivity, so surely we can squeeze some economic efficiency by cracking that nut. In other words, because our one size fits all bureaucratized hiring system so often fails to identify extreme talent, it is violating Cowen's greatest moral imperative.

I didn't always enjoy reading Talent. It adopts too much of what I view as a flaky Silicon Valley writing style for my taste, sorry. I kept thinking of that part of The Circle when Emma Watson is asked to summarize her views on Lennon vs McCartney in an interview process. I also don't love the idea of being asked to show an interviewer the tabs on my computer browser or the expectation that I should be at all times obsessing about my work. (I think I already probably spend too much time thinking about my work.)

But there are some interesting ideas here. My favorite chapter was the second one on personality, "What is Personality Good For? Part Two: Some More Exotic Concepts." And if you are in a position to hire others, I would certainly recommend Talent to you.

But for me it was 3.5 stars. ...more

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Jun 23, 2022 Ryan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: startup-core, favorites

An excellent book both for general audience (anyone who might have a job or hire for a job...) but also for startup founders specifically, as they're often very focused on organizational design. It's not perfect, but does inspire, and has some good ways to create your own processes and models for evaluating talent.

Tyler Cowen is one of my favorite mainstream-libertarian economists who also runs an investment/exploration fund. Daniel Gross is a former YC founder, then partner, Apple employee, and ...more

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Jun 12, 2022 Aaron Sabin rated it liked it

This book presents different ways of thinking about professional talent, including understanding how different personality types match different roles, the importance of intelligence, interview techniques, and ways of spotting talent. I like the idea of thinking about identifying and recruiting talent as a "Moneyball" type of scheme. It was the first time I had thought about this topic in a structured way, so I appreciate the book for that alone. It was also very easy to read.

My complaints about ...more

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Jun 17, 2022 Hampus Jakobsson rated it it was ok

Caveat: I like the authors’ previous work and had _very_ high expectations, so maybe my review is too harsh.

TL;DR:
1. Finding the right people for the right problem doesn’t not only drive the world forward, but also it levels the playing field as a lot of talent isn’t discovered or in the “main field” (like at a prestigious institution).
2. Looking at the talent in new ways, in new places, or “new kinds of people” has a massive arbitrage as most institutions' value is priced in; everyone loves h ...more

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May 22, 2022 Patrick rated it liked it

Shelves: spring-2022

An important subject, and there are some interesting insights in here from two smart people. Much more venture capital / Silicon Valley tech startup oriented than the introductory material and marketing lets on. That preoccupation sharply limits how generalizable the findings are. Some interesting points but also a good bit of anecdotal fluff.

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May 21, 2022 Russell Blickhan rated it it was ok

in which tyler cowen writes a generic pop psych book. not sure I was the target audience for this, but then again I’m not sure who was 🤔

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May 23, 2022 Shane rated it it was amazing

Absolutely loved this book, and while it has some faults, it is an overwhelmingly positive addition to the underappreciated field of talent recognition.

That being said, it requires some disclaimers:

This is NOT a psychology book (not strictly at least). It does venture into the 5-factor personality and IQ literature as they pertain to job performance and income, but nothing beyond that.

Someone unfamiliar with basic statistics, and some science jargon, may struggle with portions of this book. The ...more

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Jun 18, 2022 Jeff rated it liked it

Shelves: audio

I'm not sure what to make of this book. It has many interesting ideas. Apparently it's the product of years of discussion between the two authors and it feels it. They've refined their ideas into a book, it's not a dialogue, but it's not as coherent or focused as I expected.

As a practical manual for hiring, they seem not to have a consistent sense of who their audience is, who they are trying to help. Sometimes they give advice that could be applied to hire a reasonably competent employee for an I'm not sure what to make of this book. It has many interesting ideas. Apparently it's the product of years of discussion between the two authors and it feels it. They've refined their ideas into a book, it's not a dialogue, but it's not as coherent or focused as I expected.

As a practical manual for hiring, they seem not to have a consistent sense of who their audience is, who they are trying to help. Sometimes they give advice that could be applied to hire a reasonably competent employee for any job, but they seem much more interested in how to identify world-changing talent, the very best people who will do something brilliant or inspiring or revolutionary. They are even more excited about discovering these people where others aren't looking, finding talent that is usually overlooked. So the audience in that case would be... the authors themselves? I don't know anyone else trying to do that. I know lots of people trying to make good hiring decisions for ordinary jobs.

Some of the advice in this book is useful for that. Maybe. But even that advice, like avoiding scripted interview questions and trying to get the interviewee out of "interview mode" so they will reveal what they are really going to be like on the job, drifts into this presumption that you want to find the diamonds in the rough, the talent that others aren't finding, and this method will help you. If you're at the very top of your field hiring the world's best, maybe this is your situation. If you are just trying to avoid hiring mistakes, or to recruit and identify the most capable people you can to build a team that works well together, there isn't as much here for you.

My other bone to pick with this book is how it goes back and forth on the meaning of career success. In some chapters, notably the ones on why intelligence is overrated and which personality factors are important, the book looks at studies that correlate these things primarily with career income, assuming that people who are paid better must be more effective at their jobs, so if intelligence makes little difference to salary, then it must make little difference on the job.

But then in other sections on sexism, discrimination and stereotyping, lookism, confidence, etc. they look at the same types of studies and assume that salary differences are evidence for discrimination.

For example, if intelligent people are paid a little bit more, this is evidence that intelligence is a little bit useful for being an effective employee, so you should try to hire for intelligence a little (but it's not as important as we think because it's only a little difference.)

But if attractive people are paid a lot more, then shouldn't this be evidence that being attractive is useful for being an effective employee, so you should try to hire attractive people? No, of course not. That's just evidence of our biases at play.

But then why wouldn't it be evidence of bias towards intelligence?

I can't remember the word for this fallacy but the same logic leads to different conclusions depending on the terms inserted, which is just bad reasoning, whatever it's called.

At the very least, you would expect the arguments about bias to lessen the reliance on career success as evidence about the importance of intelligence and personality, but it doesn't seem to.

Overall an interesting book but neither as useful nor as thought provoking as I expected. ...more

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May 25, 2022 David rated it liked it

Very mixed feelings on this book. Big fan of Tyler Cowen's work (podcast, blog, etc) and always enjoy his wide-ranging, provocative, snappy intellect. But this book isn't great. It does include quite a bit of his entertaining and clever thinking, but it feels like a brainstorm, not a book; lists of hypothesis that aren't well worked out; jumping from conjecture to conjecture; making a point and then providing a caveat that invalidates that point. Further, it aspires to be a broad, general book o Very mixed feelings on this book. Big fan of Tyler Cowen's work (podcast, blog, etc) and always enjoy his wide-ranging, provocative, snappy intellect. But this book isn't great. It does include quite a bit of his entertaining and clever thinking, but it feels like a brainstorm, not a book; lists of hypothesis that aren't well worked out; jumping from conjecture to conjecture; making a point and then providing a caveat that invalidates that point. Further, it aspires to be a broad, general book on spotting talent, but to a degree that I think they don't even realize it felt to me almost entirely about finding a very specific type of Silicon Valley start-up founders. Yes, he talks briefly about spotting talented prospective models and athletes, but that clearly isn't their core interest. Also, while he articulates strong principals around spotting talent where it may not have been spotted historically (because of geography, race, gender, disability) these sections aren't strong, and they aren't core to what they seem to really care about (again, finding a specific type of talent, that resembles the authors themselves, to found Silicon Valley style start-ups.). Lastly, they continually cite a very narrow group of "talent spotters" that are certainly very successful, but in a very narrow and specific way, and happen to just about all be white males that lean towards libertarianism (Peter Theil, Elon Musk, Marc Andreeson.). (I'll add, that while I recognize Peter Thiel's prescience in identifying many start-up leaders, the most recent prominent example of him identifying talent is political--J.D. Vance the brutally hypocritical, anti-democratic Trumpist candidate for Senate in Ohio--to talk about Theil as a guru of talent spotting and not talk about this massive failure of insight/ethics/morality/commonsense is embarrassing.) The one woman they cite as a super talent spotter is Jessica Livingston, co-founder of YCombinator, but only in the chapter on gender, not in the primary chapters generally on interviewing/spotting talent despite the fact that she seems as good or better at it than many of these men.

Net: If you are a hiring manager or an investor in tech firms, there is some good stuff here. I interview quite a few start-up founders and I will re-read the chapter on interviewing because it sparked some interesting ideas. Also if you are applying to work in tech start-ups or large tech firms with Silicon Valley culture, you might find it interesting to understand how some of these folks will interview and try to understand you and your talents. Beyond that, I can't recommend the book, but you might enjoy listening to the much shorter discussion between the authors on Tyler's podcast here: https://conversationswithtyler.com/ep... ...more

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May 22, 2022 Brendan Giles rated it really liked it

One of my great loves is reading, so I thought it might be fun to share a mini-review of some of the books I've been reading.

Talent is the result of a collaboration between economist Tyler Cowen and Venture Capitalist Daniel Gross and it reflects their careers with a focus on how they both go about finding talent in their respective careers. While a lot of the advice is still worthwhile for those hiring for their business, expect to be doing some selective application of the ideas in the book.

T One of my great loves is reading, so I thought it might be fun to share a mini-review of some of the books I've been reading.

Talent is the result of a collaboration between economist Tyler Cowen and Venture Capitalist Daniel Gross and it reflects their careers with a focus on how they both go about finding talent in their respective careers. While a lot of the advice is still worthwhile for those hiring for their business, expect to be doing some selective application of the ideas in the book.

Talent provides some brilliant practical advice, with detailed ideas for running interviews, an interesting section on optimising interview questions with examples, and a timely guide to interviewing remote candidates. I particularly liked one of the proposed interview questions “What are the open tabs on your browser right now?” as a clever way to get an insight into how a candidate uses their free time and what is interesting to them.

I was also particularly fond of the chapters on Disability, Women, and Minorities, which highlight the benefits that can accrue to an organisation through a more diverse workforce. They also provide practical tips on how you can modify your talent search and hiring process to better accommodate more diverse candidates. This is an area that is underexplored in other books I've read on this topic so I especially appreciated it here.

Unfortunately, Talent also strayed off into more philosophical territory that's less valuable. In particular, it spent far too much time exploring the five-factor theory and its dubious benefits.

Talent is petty short and I appreciate that way it avoids lengthy diversions into stories and examples. These appear far too often in 'advice' style books and make the books longer than they need to be. It was a bit of a slug to read, with some dense sections that hammer on a point longer than I thought was necessary.

Overall Talent is a useful book that I would recommend to anyone involved in the hiring process or who has interested in improving their ability to spot talent. It's a quick read and had more than enough valuable ideas to make it worthwhile. ...more

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May 27, 2022 Pete rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

Talent : How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World (2022) by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross describes how Cowen and Gross look for talent. The two have done this successfully, Cowen has hired economists that won economics Nobel prizes and Gross started a company that was acquired by Apple and has now joined Y Combinator. Gross has now established Pioneer, an early stage remote start up accelerator that is dedicated to finding and helping start ups around the world.

For any Talent : How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World (2022) by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross describes how Cowen and Gross look for talent. The two have done this successfully, Cowen has hired economists that won economics Nobel prizes and Gross started a company that was acquired by Apple and has now joined Y Combinator. Gross has now established Pioneer, an early stage remote start up accelerator that is dedicated to finding and helping start ups around the world.

For anyone wondering if they should read this book it would be worth listening to the Conversations with Tyler podcast episode number 150 where the two authors discuss the book.

Gross and Cowen point out that harnessing talent really matters, invention and creation really help the world. Starting SpaceX and lowering launch costs is a big deal. The ability to start something and find smart, hard working people who get things done is crucial. Apparently Elon Musk interviewed the first 3000 employees at SpaceX.

The book looks at interview questions to ask, what are good and bad questions. They also look at how the internet can be used to engage with people and find talented people and people to help. Interestingly Gross and Cowen even probe how much intelligence helps.

They look at personality and how personality tests can be used to spot something. Interestingly a big five personality test can identify the sex of the person about 85% of the time. The book also looks at how disabilities don’t mean a lack of talent.

Gross and Cowen also look at why women and minorities are overlooked and how talent can be better found if more careful search is done. The book also describes how talent scouts are searching wider and wider for various attributes.

Finally the book looks at how to get talented people to join you.

Talent isn’t a bad book. Gross and Cowen really have experience in what they are talking about and have some insights. It’s not a book on how to hire people generally, but instead how to look for exceptional people as Cowen and Gross do. ...more

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Jun 18, 2022 Jack rated it really liked it

Has some good things but I agree with others that this book seems more about finding a specific type of founder than about finding talent in general. E.g. I think the question “what tabs do you have open?” and meta-questions such as “which of your beliefs are you least rational about?” are great to identify certain types of people who might have good ideas, but less good for identifying which types of people might do a good job, say, working at a nonprofit to help the homeless. I don’t think Tyl ...more

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Jul 03, 2022 Sebastian rated it liked it

This was an enjoyable, quick, and conversation-starting book. I would send it to someone who is new to Silicon Valley culture in the same way that Zero To One is a reasonable window into this world for an outsider -- but maybe not a lot of novel content for people already in the VC / startup scene.

Regardless, there were still many parts of Talent that I found insightful.

For instance I think there were some good tips of evaluating talent from cultures beyond one's own. (I think this is the stro ...more

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May 01, 2022 AnnieM rated it really liked it

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book but found some very useful insights and suggestions on how to assess talent for hiring. Although its subtitle is "How to Identify Energizers, Creatives and Winners Around the World" there are sample interview questions and techniques that could work for roles beyond the C-suite. I particularly appreciated the chapters on being open to hiring people with disabilities and understanding how our personal biases get in the way when we are interviewing and s ...more

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May 29, 2022 Sean rated it it was ok

From Chapter 8 — "There is evidence from economics, for instance, that the gender confidence gap comes mainly from male economists making proclamations about areas they don't know much about.”(pg 185)

If you combine such an economist with the pseudo-profound proclamations of a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, you end up with pages and pages of unsubstantiated 'advice’. And a helpful Appendix with apparently ‘good questions’ to ask during an interview, which include “Why do you want to work ...more

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May 30, 2022 Paul Johnson rated it really liked it

Shelves: business, non-fiction

A book largely of big ideas rather than practical advice. Nevertheless lots of interesting concepts. First the idea that intelligence is not terribly predictive, other personality traits, especially conscientiouness dominate. In founders, people who are simultaneously disagreable and open-minded tend to do well. The book had many suggestions for interview questions, encouraging the reader to engage in conversation and glean meta-information from the answers. For example, learning what people do ...more

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Jun 23, 2022 Elle rated it it was ok

Honest review in exchange for an ARC from St. Martin’s Press:

Tyler & Daniel sure think highly of themselves. I went into this unsure of what I could take from it since I no longer work in a position where I will ever hire people. I hoped that I could apply what I learned to discovering talent in the teenagers I teach so I could guide them into course choices that would support their futures.

Overall I did not learn that at all. I feel perhaps more prepared for future job interviews. This book fe ...more

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Mar 23, 2022 Sasha rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 28, 2022 Trevor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: business

Like much of Tyler's writing, it isn't so much a book as a collection of blog post ideas presented in a book format. I've followed him for a decade, so it isn't much of a surprise that I agree with what he says. That said, I wish he didn't reveal a secret that I've built my career on, namely, that because the acceptable bandwidth for female personal styles is so narrow, many exceptional women get pushed to the side. I've built my team full of incredibly talented people who, for various reasons T ...more

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May 29, 2022 Laura Skladzinski rated it really liked it

Economist Tyler Cowen and entrepreneur Daniel Gross take a combined approach in examining the art and science of hiring talent - and their two angles work well together, with theory balanced by practicality. I found myself highlighting so many sections of this book, with tips on good interview questions as well as what to actually look for, and there were a lot of surprises along the way. My only complaint would be that the book lost steam as it went - I found the earliest chapters the most comp ...more

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Apr 30, 2022 Carolyn Selli rated it did not like it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 26, 2022 Paul J rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Liked approach of seeking undervalued talent. Found sections on personality traits, disabilities, women, minorities most interesting.

Amused by question authors suggest people hiring from lower tier firms should ask themselves…if person is willing to work here, what is wrong with them.

Best stat: 1 in 20 terminated for being toxic (sexual harassment, workplace violence, fraud, falsifying documents, other egregious behaviors). Toxic workers encourage others to be toxic as well. Contagion effect ma ...more

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Jun 29, 2022 Amanda rated it liked it

Hiring is a part of my job where I don't feel particularly confident so I was interested in hearing from people who apparently do. While a lot of this advice is directed at looking more for entrepreneurs or founders, it still felt helpful at a general level. I can't say I would actually take a lot of the advice, some of it is just awkward - keep asking the same question 10 times to get passed the planned answers -, some of it was unpersuasive - I don't think people's open tabs are always reveali ...more

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Jun 13, 2022 Jay Yeo rated it liked it

The subtitle of the book may be a bit misleading - rather than a book on finding talent and its markers in general, it has a big focus on finding talents in relatively undiscovered or undervalued groups of people who may not present with more traditional markers of success or credentials, such as matching work to personality and types of neurodivergence (selecting for specific traits while overlooking negatives). It also covers networking, branding, empowerment and development as avenues of attr ...more

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Jun 19, 2022 Aris Catsambas rated it did not like it

Being a Marginal Revolution fan, I had high expectations for this book. I was disappointed. The TL;DR is that there is no person for whom this book is useful: either you have some sort of intuition for identifying 'talent', in which case you may find a few useful tips here, but nothing game-changing, or you don't, in which case following the advice of the book is not only useless, but dangerous (how do you evaluate a response to 'what's the longest distance you've ever been from another human be ...more

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About Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen

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Tyler Cowen (born January 21, 1962) occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution. He currently writes the "Economic Scene" column for the New York Times and writes for such magazines as The New Republic and The Wilson Quarterly.

Cowen's primary research interest is ...more

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Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World

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