en.wikipedia.org
This area is informally known as the academic corridor. Highest PhDs per capita + dense clustering of: Ivy league + elite R1 universities, federal research agencies and labs (NIH, NSF, DoD, NIST), research hospitals & think tanks.
Washington D.C. metro area has among the highest percentages of doctoral degree holders in the U.S. (e.g., ~4.6% of adults with PhDs). Towns and metros where 8–15%+ of adults hold doctorates (which is extraordinarily high). "The Ivy/research belt."
You also have:
en.wikipedia.org
And Boulder, CO is one of the single highest PhD % cities.
To give you a fairly direct answer that you seem to be seeking: top research universities within their field. This could be immunology at say, Rockefeller University, this could be computer science at the University of Washington (a "public ivy"), it could engineering at Harvey Mudd, it might be in the arts at Reed College (at the time one of the top liberal arts institutions in the country, very exclusive). Of course you have the other big names like John Hopkins, MIT, the ivy leagues, the little ivies, the Canadian ivies, Oxford, London School of Economics, Cambridge, University of Tokyo, etc.
But in research, actively conducting cutting-edge top notch research.
Another one would be, again, research labs. But federal is not necessarily going to have the same quality and quantity. Necessarily. There is NASA, NIH. But like I said, you can find prominent immunologist at Rockefeller University or Stanford University or elsewhere than you will the NIH. NASA last landed on the moon in 1972. I'm not saying they're idiots or irrelevant but I'm just saying, commercial industry has been making all the breakthroughs for various reasons. Yes, NASA had their funding cut - thats part of my point. So not the US government. Private industry pays more.
Pharmaceutical and medical and biotech research labs.
Think of Bell Labs back in the day. There isn't really a single equivalent today. But think of Microsoft and big cutting edge companies like OpenAI. I know a guy at Microsoft that makes almost million dollars a year because he a PhD in such an obscure specific specialization that is very, very esoteric. Nothing compared to that one AI Meta researcher that made the news not long ago. But Samsung, Google's DeepMind, Lockheed's SkunkWorks, MSL, IBM Research, etc.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
A more low-level answer. Cigar lounges in affluent cities.
Some of the best problem solvers I've worked with have been car mechanics just because of the number of different vehicle brands and models that they had to go through and troubleshoot. They always read the manual but its just the sheer number and variety that enhanced that neural plasticity
Maybe conferences or summits like scientists or psychologists or economists or whatever all attend.
I mean are you equating intelligence with success?
You can have PhD and work at a hedge fund but do you actively publish or conduct research?
Inventors? I know some patent holders…
I would be inclined to tell you entrepreneurs especially serial-entrepreneurs. So maybe business incubators? A one point, we all worried that we may never be big, so we started companies on the side and I had a company that incubated a lot of small startups like software and entertainment and apparel and hardcore skate, surf companies stuff like that. Well I learned a lot from that. (For Mr. Germany, again maybe I'll post sometime about all this kind of stuff I seem to get mixed reactions).
Venture capital? It's selective to break into, typically requires a track record, and they sit on boards and advise founders managing large teams in hyper growth.
I did an apprenticeship at a VC fund and have friends that are successful VC's.
You can talk shit about Elon not starting Tesla after you've *scaled* a company like he has. Not just valuations, he has scaled their branding and manufacturing. He's a clown and scum but don't say he's useless.
Global leaders — Maduro was formally a bus driver. I mean, a lot of American presidents, even Trump, Bushs', and Obama, etc. went to ivy league universities, some got masters. But are they truly
intelligent? Cunning, scheming, resource-enabled?
Monks & theologians?
people who accomplished nothing in their life because they cannot function in our societies. Some might end up homeless
Is this like James Sidis or something?
leading activists
Like…?
CEO's of (tech) companies
not CTO's or SVP's or top researchers or scientists?
Powerful people in churches
Like charismatic or like clever?
In academia
As a bureaucracy academia isn't very forthcoming. It doesn't really care who you are, what you know, what you're capable of. Its all very mass producing oriented. And this is something to which a lot of intelligent minds do very well.
Autodidacts?
Most people who are self-taught didn't have good teachers (including themselves), but those who did can be outstanding.
Polymaths are rare.
Watch this video- don't worry about the title. It's about your question. He's a great culinary YouTuber, btw.
I could also say, hmm, some infill developers I've met. These people can have a lot of vision and they reshape the world in that image. They understand engineering and construction and codes and zoning and local politics and business and finances and demographics and infrastructure, etc, etc. just very multifaceted. They have to build great teams with experts in different fields.
Sadly you once upon a time would have said the library
Physicists invented the laser, the transistor, created the first electronic computer, microwaves, radio, radar, television, MRI, created internet, wrote the World Wide Web. Whatever it is, a physicist probably helped invent it.
For what it's worth... on the Engineering front... When I was in college pursuing a degree in Engineering... Electrical Engineering... I was frustrated by the method of teaching they insisted upon us.
We were taught to not care about what was inside the black box... only to learn what inputs resulted in what outputs... but don't worry about the black box contents or what happened in there. I rebelled. I said I thought knowing how the black box worked made everything else make much more sense... plus, who was going to be designing the black boxes if it wasn't Engineers? I was repeatedly told not to worry about the black box... but the only way that works is if you just memorize input A = Output X, input B = Output Y... and so forth... and not only was it boring, and much more difficult than actually learning how things worked... it seemed to be antithetical to everything I thought Engineering was supposed to be.
This reminded me of when I had taken something apart and remarked, "Aaron, it's just PCB inside." And said, "Well, yeah, of course. What were you expecting? Magic?" Lmao
But seriously, I take your point. I had a similar frustration. A coworker / mentor pointed out to me that, "nowadays, the carpenter doesn't need to know why the tree has rings anymore." It was kind of saddening honestly. But he had a point. But yes, I do agree with you, thats a big part of the learning to problem-solve to begin with is understanding the principles of the system design and having as much knowledge of operations going in.
would appreciate this. My friend introduced me to his cousin who has dual PhD's in mathematical statistics and for his thesis he rewrote all the math books for all the grades of the public schools in CA. So he makes bank working for the government in CA writing math books. His wife has a PhD in chemical mathematics so she does all the pharmacy chemical stats for a big pharmaceutical company. But do you know what he did as a job through his PhD and masters studies? He was a dishwasher and he absolutely loved it because he could just be in his own head and put on headphones. But would you have judged him at that time based solely on his occupation?
