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But he believed his richly human case histories were no less important than his great neuropsychological treatises. Luria’s endeavor—to combine the classical and the romantic, science and storytelling—became my own, and his “little book,” as he always called it (The Mind of a Mnemonist is only a hundred and sixty small pages), altered the focus and direction of my life, by serving as an exemplar not only for Awakenings but for everything else I was to write.
Nearly two centuries later, psychologist Dean Simonton has gathered research supporting Quetelet’s early observations: the most accomplished scientists, artists, and scholars are also those who produce the most. Simonton explains that across many domains, personal productivity and social creativity are highly correlated. If we look at the pattern of creativity across an individual’s career, Simonton argues, the periods when a person produces their best work also tend to be the periods when they produce the most work. Measuring the number of highly acclaimed works and dividing them by the total can produce a kind of quality ratio. “This ratio of hits to total shots does not change in a regular pattern with age,” Simonton explains. “The ratio neither increases nor decreases, nor exhibits any other form. This remarkable result suggests that quality is a function of quantity.” Simonton proposes an “equal-odds baseline,” which suggests that, once a person begins contributing original work to their field, every attempt has roughly equal potential for world-changing impact.
Get Better at Anything
Scott Young
Putin himself is hardly uninvolved. Evidence suggests that he also pillages the state, on an even grander scale. Some of Russia’s wealthiest men are Putin’s personal friends, including Gennady Timchenko, the head of the Gunvor oil trading company, who is believed to be worth $15.3 billion; Yuri Kovalchuk, an owner of the Rossiya Bank ($1.4 billion); and the Rotenberg brothers, Arkady and Boris, whose combined wealth is estimated at $5.6 billion. All of these men made fortunes on the assets of the state. Gazfund, the largest nongovernment pension fund, Gazprombank, Russia’s second–most important bank, and Gazprom-media were all removed from state-run Gazprom and put under the control of the Rossiya Bank. Gunvor, little known in 2000, has since become the world’s third-largest oil trader, and the Rotenberg brothers, besides owning intermediary firms that sold pipes to Gazprom, received approximately $7 billion in contracts for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.23 According to Boris Nemtsov, the former first deputy prime minister who was murdered in Moscow on February 27, 2015, and Vladimir Milov, the former deputy minister of energy, “There is reason to assume that all of these Timchenkos, Kovalchuks, Rotenbergs—are nothing more than nominal owners of big property and that the real beneficiary is Putin himself.”24 Stanislav Belkovsky, a Russian political analyst who once worked as a speechwriter for Berezovsky, told the German newspaper Die Welt in 2007 that Putin’s secret assets were worth $40 billion, which would make him the richest man in Europe. Citing senior figures in the president’s own administration as his sources, Belkovsky said that Putin was the beneficial owner of 75 percent of Gunvor, 37 percent of Surgutneftegaz (a principal supplier of oil for Gunvor), and 4.5 percent of Gazprom. This ownership structure was concealed behind a “non-transparent network of offshore companies,” with the final points in Zug, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein. When asked whether he could prove his claims, Belkovsky said that Putin’s wealth is no secret among the elites. “And you should note that Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] has never sued me.”25 Belkovsky’s estimates of Putin’s private wealth track closely with those of Western intelligence.
The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep
David Satter
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