[anigbrowl]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy

Of course, your ability to hit a target in reality has nothing to do with the number of other people aiming at it - in this case, Bruce Springsteen's ability to write great songs is not constrained by the existence of many other brilliant songwriters.

This sort of free-association discourse seems very popular in marketing/ entrepreneurial/ motivational blogging but sadly it's not that informative or educational.

[selcuka]

That was the first thing I thought of when I read the article. The verdict seems to be conflicting with the supporting evidence:

> He can play the guitar, but “the world is filled with plenty of good guitar players, many of them my match or better,” he writes in his excellent memoir, Born to Run

Should we assume that there aren't as many good lyric writers, who are Springsteen's match or better? This doesn't sound plausible, nor it is hinted by the article.

[spondylosaurus]

I interpreted it more as Springsteen knowing he was a better lyricist than he was a singer or guitar player, and as such played to his own strengths by focusing on that.

If everything's a competition of sorts, you're more likely to "win" if you enter in your strongest category. Even if that category isn't the category that tends to carry the most prestige (e.g., being a strong lyricist is arguably less legendary in itself than being a strong instrumentalist).

[jon-wood]

This to me feels more like the classic argument for being multi-talented. There’s lots of people who can play a guitar, or write song lyrics, or sing. There’s not so many who can do all three to the required standard to make a living from it.

[djmips]

Plus, it's been shown that there's plenty of equally talented musicians as Bruce Springsteen. He just edged the others out by a process that we might as well call luck.

[ojbyrne]

Some luck perhaps, but also a reputation (well deserved imo) of working very very hard for a very long time.

His predilection for 4 hour long concerts was well known in the eighties.

[tasty_freeze]

There is more to it than just hard work. There are a lot of people who would be able to put on a four hour show, but would people want to watch it? Four hour concerts are celebrated only if the entertainer can grip the audience for four hours.

[charcircuit]

The definition of great is relative. If too many people write great songs they become average songs.

[quickthrower2]

They should really have used an example like John Smith who made it to Level 6 SWE at Google instead of Level 4, because he kept his passion for low level coding (even though everyone was say "do web programming") or something. But that would be too prosaic I guess!

[charcircuit]

I would expect more people to say to focus on writing docs and finding others to implement them than focusing on web programming.