The number of hours required for basic competence is HIGHLY dependent on three key things: 1. The particular activity 2. The abilities of the person 3. How much competence you consider "basic"
I think I'd put "environment" in at #3, maybe even #2. Where environment is a wide umbrella including the obvious (time and space to devote to study, quality of study materials and support) to the somewhat less so (your gender, your race, your affluence or lack thereof, the supportive/skeptical attitudes of your family and friends etc).
Environment is subject to limited control by an individual. But young, affluent people have the most control. Environment winds up being largely a matter of luck.
This environmental influence - which so often is matter of luck - is one subtlety that seems to get consistently left out of all these "10,000 hours" and "100 hours" type discussions. Even a clever person can spend 10,000 hours working at something under terrible conditions and have poor results. One doesn't have to be particularly bright to spend 10 hours under ideal circumstances and make real progress.
By leaving this out, we offer unwarranted support to a certain Utopian/libertarian/meritocratic mythos that is so popular in the software/startup field. And I think that's a shame. I think the field will ultimately be better off if it can view itself more clearly.
I had a suspicion there might be some factors I was forgetting. I think this is a really big one so thanks for mentioning it. I recently became more aware of this factor after spending some time with a couple less fortunate kids going into college for computer science. It's amazing how a small amount of well-placed guidance from an experienced mentor can have a dramatic effect. In this case it was three things:
1. Learn vim (or emacs)
2. Use Linux and the command line
3. Use git
One of the guys started this semester. He's already a bright guy and would have been near the top of his class without me, but those three simple things make him look like a magician to his classmates. In the course of getting helping him get set up with Linux I also became aware how much of an advantage my middle class upbringing gave me. Something relatively basic like having a decent laptop can actually be a big obstacle. $1000 is a lot of money to a lot of people. Now I'm sure some people will say that you don't need to spend $1000 to get started with a usable computer. That's true, but there are useful things that you can do with a $1000 computer that the much more affordable computers can't do.
Another anecdote. A few years ago I was in a climbing gym and I tried slacklining. It seemed impossible so I didn't do anything more with it. A few years later someone suggested that it does wonders for your balance so I decided I wanted to learn. Then by luck I happened to run across some people slacklining and over the course of a couple days I was able to spend some time with them practicing. Their guidance got me over an initial hump that seemed insurmountable from the outside.
So yes, "environment" should DEFINITELY be added to my list!
I think I'd put "environment" in at #3, maybe even #2. Where environment is a wide umbrella including the obvious (time and space to devote to study, quality of study materials and support) to the somewhat less so (your gender, your race, your affluence or lack thereof, the supportive/skeptical attitudes of your family and friends etc).
Environment is subject to limited control by an individual. But young, affluent people have the most control. Environment winds up being largely a matter of luck.
This environmental influence - which so often is matter of luck - is one subtlety that seems to get consistently left out of all these "10,000 hours" and "100 hours" type discussions. Even a clever person can spend 10,000 hours working at something under terrible conditions and have poor results. One doesn't have to be particularly bright to spend 10 hours under ideal circumstances and make real progress.
By leaving this out, we offer unwarranted support to a certain Utopian/libertarian/meritocratic mythos that is so popular in the software/startup field. And I think that's a shame. I think the field will ultimately be better off if it can view itself more clearly.