The Most Valuable Commodity

I've been in the situation frustratingly often where I've been looking for collaborators for project ideas I've been noodling around. From this, I've realized the most valuable commodity: competent, available people.

What do I mean by competent? aka What makes someone very pleasant to work with?

1. They're conscientious.

Fast to respond to emails / messages (oftentimes <10 minutes, when they're awake). Think this is an extremely strong predictor too, and easy to verify.

Proactive. You don't have to keep chasing them down.

Calibrated. They know long it takes them to do a task, and whether they have the skills and knowledge to do so. Recognize when they are dropping the ball on things, and telling you early that they can't.

2. Knowledgeable:

Sharp. They can develop ideas on the fly. They can acknowledge when you've made a good point, and then update their beliefs accordingly.

Opinionated. You get that deep sense that beneath their beliefs there is a model of the world, not just a deferral to authority, or an assumption left unquestioned. The best have original thoughts.

Common context. Ideally we have the same model of the world and assumptions about the future, or at least are able to debate from that view. We start from a shared desire for some end-state.

High openness. Willing to consider unusual hypotheticals. Try new things.

Well-read. They are at the frontier of your field, and are up-to-date with the latest experiments/news developments/drama etc. I need to be able to say something like "what do you think of the state moratorium"

3. Skilled

Ambitious. They always are asking, how can this be better. They are acting with a goal, but can change that goal when the situation adapts. Unfortunately, a blessing and a curse. Ambition is the ultimate reason why these competent people are very rare — the best people are usually hyper-ambitious and want to do their own thing. Sometimes can be combatted by making them a partner in crime.

Agentic. They do things first. Being conscientious is one subset, but there is this deep sense that if there is something wrong with the world, and it is important enough, they feel a personal responsibility to fix it.

Basic skills. Know how and when to use LLMs. How to cite papers. How to write emails. How to write.