## Introduction This essay delves into the distribution of work output and rewards, and argues that being prolific is essential for creating exceptional work and achieving outsized success. ## Work Output Follows a Bell Curve A mental model I always go back to is that a lot of things in life follow a **bell curve**. If you want to generate high-quality business or creative ideas, for example, you need to accept that you will have a lot of mediocre ones, and some really bad ones too. You cannot have one without the other. *You cannot pick and choose which part of the bell curve you generate ideas from.* Eventually, as you get more experienced, your "personal" bell curve starts to move rightward - the average quality of your work increases, but you never escape the bell curve. This applies to almost every profession - the only way to make great films is to make a lot of films. The only way to write great novels is to write a lot of them. Most of them might end up being mediocre, some might be terrible, but every once in a while, you'll end up making a masterpiece. Jeremy Uelsmann, a professor at the University of Florida, conducted an [experiment](https://betterfundraising.com/an-experiment-in-photography-class/) where he divided the students in his photography class into two groups. The first group would be judged based on quality - their grade would be determined by the single best photograph they submitted. The second group would be judged based on quantity - their final grade depended on the number of photographs they produced, regardless of how good or bad they were. At the end of the semester, Uelsmann found that none of the students in the quality group received an 'A' for their photographs. Even more surprising was that many of the photographs produced by the quantity group would have received 'A's had they been judged according to the quality group's criteria. The quantity group didn't care about the quality of their work, so they were free to experiment with composition and lighting, try new perspectives, and make mistakes. This allowed them to have more "shots on goal", increasing their chances of producing something exceptional. They were then able to learn from their work, and fine-tune their skills, allowing them to move their "personal bell curves" rightwards, improving the overall quality of their work. ## Rewards Follow the Power Law Rewards in a capitalist system, on the other hand, follow the **power law**, where the top 1% often aggregates a disproportionate amount of all the rewards. Two firms in the smartphone industry today command over [70%](https://www.statista.com/statistics/620805/smartphone-sales-market-share-in-the-us-by-vendor/) of the US market share; 1% of music artists account for [90% of streams](https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/top-1-percent-streaming-1055005/); three airlines in the US account for [50%](https://simpleflying.com/north-america-concentrated-airline-market/) of the total market share. This rule applies to any market, any industry. ## Be Prolific Another way to make sense of this is the following - excellence emerges from a broad spectrum of attempts, including failures and mediocrities. Rewards, on the other hand, disproportionately accumulate to the exceptional few that stand out from the many. It means that a handful of decisions, over the thousands you make throughout your career, will disproportionately account for the majority of your success. This might seem like all your other decisions were "wasted", but that is the wrong way to think about it - you likely would not have made one without the other. So no matter which industry you are in, *the path to outsized success is through a high volume of work*. This approach increases your chances of producing something truly exceptional. Being prolific is also the only way to move your bell curve rightwards. With every project you undertake, every experiment you run, and every idea you test, you accumulate experience, hone your skills, and refine your understanding of what works and what doesn't. ## Bet Heavy If you are ever in the enviable position of having produced something truly exceptional, realize that you now have an **edge** - something unique that sets you apart from everyone else and an opportunity to aggregate a disproportionate amount of the market rewards. *An edge is rare and temporary*. It's like having the winning hand in poker - if you're lucky enough to get one, make it count and **bet heavy**. ## Conclusion Quantity and quality, therefore, are not opposites of one another. Rather, the former is a necessary precondition for the latter. Embrace a high-volume approach to work, and realize that excellence lies in the relentless pursuit of creation and the ability to identify and maximally exploit the rare opportunities that come your way.