Why Do the Best People Learn Obsessively About Their Field?

David Senra, reading Bill Gurley, says the best people learn obsessively about their field because being the most knowledgeable is a choice, not a gift. Gurley's second rule is to hone your craft constantly and treat the learning as an obligation. Hold yourself accountable, keep learning over time, study the history, and know the pioneers. As Senra reads the talk, nobody profiled on Founders reached the top without studying the people who came before.

Gurley is not saying you have to be the smartest person. You have to collect more information. It is doable to know more than anyone else about your craft, because you can gather more information than somebody else. In 1972 Bobby Knight sat on the floor at Pete Newell's house with a stack of three-by-five cards, filled out 74 cards of plays, and asked Newell to walk through them. Bob Dylan called himself a musical expeditionary, and when he broke out he knew more about folk music than anyone else. Danny Meyer, before a barbecue restaurant in New York, ate at every barbecue place he could find in Texas, then tasted 14 variations of chopped pork in North Carolina, down to how the crackling was tossed in.

Gurley ends the section with a line Senra says he has thought about for years. Information is freely available, so you now have zero excuse for not being the most knowledgeable person in any subject you want.