What is Greatness?

Apple would never have grown to a $1 trillion company if Steve Jobs did not have Woz and Ive alongside. If Bill Gates had been born in 1920, we would never have heard of him. CEO Jack Welch would not achieve cult status if he started with GE today. And, as has been said many times, FDR could not even get elected today, let alone orchestrate a transformation of the modern American society. The greats ride the waves of their time—convergences of unique collaborators, culture, technology, international relations, and science.

Greatness is not a general condition, applicable in all times for all circumstances; it is a particular synchrony with a particular moment. Greatness of an individual is more like fitness-for-use to a particular, great problem. It does not imply general "otherness", as with a god who is always able to accomplish superhuman things.

This realization carries a positive twist: if the Great are not Other, then potential greatness lurks among the Unknown, too.