[Bartweiss]

Sorry, I was a bit unclear on power law - I was thinking about the career side, not just the outcomes.

So power-law for surgeons would be doing the hardest surgeries in the highest-stakes fields, heading up a clinic, ending up rich and famous. A great brain surgeon doesn't save vastly more lives than an average one, but people like Ben Carson and Sanjay Gupta get exponentially more fame and status.

I think we agree though - it's a great example of a field with similar social dynamics to programming, and a very different societal role.