Church's lab selection criteria prioritize 'niceness' over pure genius, multidisciplinarity, and these factors predict both in-lab performance and post-lab success, resulting in an 'international set of alumni that are quite nice to each other' despite supposedly working in cutthroat fields

causalpending

Speaker

George Church

Evidence Quote

“I'm looking for people that are nice... nice, I think, is highly predictive of how well you will do in the lab and afterwards”

Source

A billion years of evolution in a single afternoon — George Church— Dwarkesh Patel
Created: 8/11/2026, 6:40:03 AM

My Notes

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