As humans, we always gravitate towards the best talent. We love seeing the best, watching the best, being entertained by the best and being taught by the best. It makes viewing more special, it makes being taught feel more special, it provides us as humans the most value possible. We will always look to find the most value, the most value is delivered by the most talented people and the most talented people are often found on the web.

This is a short essay on why the internets good for society, as it acts as the best tool to locate the worlds best talent.

Firstly, what defines talent?

When we talk about talent, we mean anyone who has a skillset that very, very few people have.

The more people that try to acquire a given skillset, the more respect the top talent receives for that skill set. However, if there is a large percentage of people that fit in the top tier of a talent pool, then the interest (or demand) for this particular skillset is lower.

A great example of this is the difference between Usain Bolt and his ability to run short distances, and David Cohan, the local made up tax accountant. Both may be in the top talent of their designated skillset, but Usain needs to be 1 in 7 billion to be at the top, where as David simply needs to know how to be a sufficient accountant.

An accountant has a skillset ceiling that is extraordinary low and easy to reach, as most people in the industry have it, and is widely considered a commodity. Therefore, we give a lot of attention to the person at the top of a skillset which has a very high ceiling, not a low ceiling like Davids.

Top talent that often get extraordinary attention due to high skillset ceilings are:

• Actors

• Artists

• Musicians

• Comedians

• Athletes

• Academics and Teachers

Geography used to limit our access to talent

How we find top talent is limited by how easy it is to access them. In times before the internet, when it came to looking for top talent to teach or entertain, we had to settle for the best in our local area. Our local area defined the talent we could access, due to the fact it was the best talent we were aware of given the technological and transport constraints.

As an example, there is a chance that the best finance teacher in the world taught in your local area, however, it’s also an incredibly unlikely chance. What is far more likely, is that there were many financial teachers considered as ‘top talent’ scattered across all local areas, because the people in the local areas only knew what they had access to.

You may have had the privilege to able to travel to a nearby city, or maybe even to another country to learn from the best global talent, but for the vast majority of people, accessing the best talent has always been limited by their local area .

Traditional media was only half the antidote

The initial antidote to the geographic restrictions of local talent was through publisher and broadcast networks. This is where the top talent in a specific field could be sourced through mass publishing and distribution throughout libraries and broadcast systems.

However, even these systems had their limitations:

• They could only showcase talent they they knew existed, the best talent may not have been the CEO’s son-in-law.

• They decide what was, and wasn’t great talent, which is often subjective or varying.

• Topics must to be broad enough to be of commercial benefit, so very specific skillsets never got a look in.

Why the internet is good for society

The internets wide ranging reach provides much, much greater access to top talent than in previous generations. Suddenly, we have access to talent that extends beyond geographic and traditional media limitations.

Not only can we access more talent, but it’s access to better, more specific top talent. The internet allows top talent to cover more skillsets and is appearing in more places. Tiny skillsets are emerging with global audiences, giving us access to the best in the world in very specific fields.

No longer do we have to settle for the best within our previous local geographic limitations, we can now find the best global talent available on nearly any skillset available. When there’s more access and talent to choose from, there’s a greater chance of finding the best. The internet gives us the global reach to reveal the best.

Key takeouts:

• With greater access comes access to the best: The more talent we have access to, the greater chance we have of finding the worlds best.

• With risk comes reward: The internet means there is more access to good talent, but also more average talent. The key is to be able to filter, find and save the best talent.

• There is often value to be found: Due to an ever-present skepticism of the internet, talent providing immense value is often found underpricing themselves.