Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned

This book by Kenneth O. Stanley has come up 2 times across 2 different shows: Lex Fridman, Tim Ferriss. 2 of those mentions were genuine on-air recommendations, not just passing references. The people who brought it up: Ev Williams, Lex Fridman. The earliest mention we indexed is from 2022-09-21 and the most recent from 2025-03-19. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.

Why does modern life revolve around objectives? From how science is funded, to improving how children are educated -- and nearly everything in-between -- our society has become obsessed with a seductive illusion: that greatness results from doggedly measuring improvement in the relentless pursuit of an ambitious goal. In [this book], Stanley and Lehman begin with a surprising scientific discovery in artificial intelligence that leads ultimately to the conclusion that the objective obsession has gone too far.