In 1968, a 13‑year‑old boy was temporarily banned from his school’s computer terminal for discovering and exploiting its bugs. He was labeled ‘a problem’, treated as a rule-breaker rather than a resource. The system saw a risk where there was, in fact, extraordinary potential. And it was largely a matter of chance that this boy went on to build one of the most well-known software companies instead of being pushed out of computing altogether.
In the 1930’s, a young girl struggled to sit still in class, and adults worried something was wrong with her. Several professionals advised medical or institutional solutions, but one doctor tried something different: he turned on music, watched her move, and told her mother: “She’s not sick, she’s a dancer“. The girl, Gillian Lynne, went on to choreograph Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
These aren’t just stories about neurodivergence or ‘difficult’ kids. They are stories about capitalization failure: how systems built for the average routinely misclassify and discard the exceptional. Neurodivergence simply makes this failure impossible for institutions to ignore, because the mismatch between the individual and the system becomes so stark.
Outliers
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell asks what proportion of natural ability actually gets developed and used. His main focus is how opportunity, timing, and cultural context shape success, often in ways that are invisible from the outside. Yet there is another factor his assessment only brushes against: cognitive conformity.
Our institutions still assume and reward a narrow band of neurotypical cognition, and we squander vast amounts of human potential as a result. Alongside Gladwell’s themes of poverty, practice, and cultural background, the systematic neglect of neurodivergence belongs on the list of major filters that determine whose abilities are recognized, developed, and rewarded.
I have written elsewhere about how our frameworks overlook lateral thinking, and how a divergence rate in the order of 20% is, statistically, no longer a rare exception. This raises the unavoidable question: if divergence is this common, why do we treat it as waste, and why are we so reluctant to capitalize on its potential?
What Gladwell Missed
In a 2008 talk about Outliers at Microsoft, Malcolm Gladwell sketched a simple equation: talent plus preparation equals achievement. When meaningful opportunity approaches zero, though, talent and preparation quickly become irrelevant to outcomes.
His examples reveal how arbitrary constraints create massive waste:
- Canadian hockey players born early in the year are overrepresented at elite levels, not because winter births produce better athletes, but because age cutoffs give them a small early advantage that compounds over time.
- Bill Gates did not succeed on talent alone; he had rare early access to a computer terminal in the late 1960’s, when even most universities lacked such resources.
- The so‑called “10,000‑hour rule” is not a law of innate ability; it highlights the difference between who could practice that much and who actually does.
Gladwell’s core insight is that we routinely confuse access with merit, then label the resulting pattern a “meritocracy”.
Yet his analysis centers primarily on economic, temporal, and geographic constraints. He studies outliers: exceptional individuals who manage to succeed despite structural odds. What he does not fully consider, are the inliers: seemingly ordinary people with extraordinary potential who fail, largely because the constraints shaping them remain invisible.
The neurodivergent person who cannot get hired is not an outlier; they are an inlier in a misaligned system. The failure is largely produced by the system’s design, not by an absence of ability.
The “cap rate” — the share of people who actually get to develop and use their abilities — is already low. For many neurodivergent individuals, it is not just low; it is systematically suppressed by how we design education, hiring, and workplaces.
This is what makes the issue a crisis rather than a niche concern. Neurodivergent minds represent roughly 15–20% of the population, depending on definitions and diagnostic criteria. At that scale, we are not dealing with a marginal edge case, but with a large‑scale failure to recognize and develop human potential.
The Stupidity Constraint
The Stupidity Constraint is not about a lack of intelligence in individuals. It is about a lack of imagination in systems. We have built institutional monocultures designed around a narrow band of cognitive styles, then act surprised when they produce mediocre results.
- Hiring — Many companies claim to want “innovation”, yet they filter candidates through résumés and conventional interviews, tools that often reward conformity more than capability. A neurodivergent candidate with a “spiky profile” — brilliant in some areas, uneven in others — is likely to be screened out before they reach the door, and so is the career‑changer, the self‑taught expert, the late bloomer, the unconventional thinker.
We are not measuring ability; we are measuring compliance and branding it “meritocracy”.
- Education — Standardized testing tends to reward speed of recall over depth of understanding. A dyslexic entrepreneur might go on to build a successful business yet have struggled through school because her reading speed was deemed “below grade level”. A person with ADHD might excel at pattern recognition and complex problem‑solving yet fail rigid, timed exams. A creative thinker is marked down for “not following instructions”.
Here, the system tests what is easy to measure, not what actually matters.
- Credentialing — We have built gatekeeping mechanisms that filter for pedigree rather than performance. The working‑class student learning “business English”, the immigrant over‑credentialing to prove worth, the woman code‑switching through male‑dominated industries, the neurodivergent person masking their processing style just to be taken seriously — all are forced to contort themselves to fit the system’s expectations.
“If hockey scouts only picked players born in January, we would call it biased. When companies mostly hire people who ace conventional interviews or can sit still in long meetings, we call it meritocracy.”
The Poverty Constraint
The “10,000‑hour rule” posits that mastery requires extensive deliberate practice. What it under-emphasizes is a deeper question: who actually gets those 10,000 hours, and who exhausts theirs just trying to get in the door?
The Poverty Constraint goes beyond financial lack. It describes the poverty of resources funneled to certain types of minds: energy diverted from creation to mere navigation of the system.
Neurodivergent people often spend thousands of hours masking their differences simply to access basic opportunities. They’re not honing their craft; they’re perfecting camouflage. The same dynamic plays out elsewhere:
- First‑generation college students spend years decoding unwritten rules their peers absorbed effortlessly at home.
- Career‑changers drain savings and time re‑credentialing for skills they already possess.
- Parents — especially mothers — drop out of fields that refuse to accommodate caregiving demands.
- Night owls underperform in rigid 9‑to‑5 schedules built for early risers.
We celebrate “grit” when it fuels ascent through the system. When it’s spent just surviving a mismatched environment, we label the person “difficult”.
The misallocation is staggering. We pour billions into remediation and bringing people up to average. We invest almost nothing in acceleration and unleashing people to their peaks. Resources go to conformity training (corporate “professionalism” workshops, executive presence coaching, social skills therapy), rather than environmental redesign.
Consider Gillian Lynne again. Her story is held up as proof the system works: “See? One perceptive doctor made all the difference!”. Yet for every Lynne who dances her way out, thousands of children are still told to sit still and conform. The rare exception doesn’t validate the rule; it indicts how broken the default is.
We’ve made it cheaper to pathologize roughly 20% of humans than to redesign 100% of our institutions.
The cost of this choice extends beyond individual careers. Autism advocate and animal science professor Temple Grandin posed this thought experiment in Thinking in Pictures, paraphrasing her widely cited words: “What if the autism gene was eliminated? … humans would have been stuck in the analog age, because some autistic people prove to be great engineers and computer scientists”.
We’re not just wasting current talent. We’re eliminating the cognitive diversity that drove every major human breakthrough. The very traits we pathologize — hyperfocus, pattern recognition, lateral thinking, systems analysis — built our technological civilization. Now we filter them out at the hiring stage.
“Noise‑canceling headphones aren’t a luxury; they’re a bridge to focus. A wheelchair ramp isn’t ‘special access’; it’s universal design. Why treat accommodations like charity rather than infrastructure?”
When Divergence Becomes the Standard
The pattern is clear: In any population, roughly 15–20% represents meaningful variation from the norm.
- In hockey, it’s birth month: January players are overrepresented roughly 4:1 at elite levels.
- In business, it’s geographic access: Silicon Valley captures a wildly disproportionate share of venture funding.
- In cognition, it’s neurodivergence: ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other processing differences affect an estimated 15–20% of people, depending on criteria.
The 20% always exists. The question is whether we treat it as waste or as signal.
When January dominates hockey rosters, we call it bias. When a similar share of minds process differently, we often label it “disability”. Same skew. Different framing. Same waste.
This isn’t niche. If 20% of your customers couldn’t use your product, you’d call it a design flaw. If 20% of inventory sat unsold, you’d call it inefficiency. So why accept it as “human nature” when 20% of people struggle to thrive in our schools and workplaces?
We’ve reduced “diversity” to a participation trophy: “You’re welcome… as long as you act like us”. True inclusion isn’t admitting a few exceptions. It’s redesigning systems so difference isn’t automatically a deficit.
The 20% isn’t a problem to fix. It’s the solution to problems the 80% can’t see. Neurodivergent minds spot overlooked patterns. Career‑changers enable cross‑pollination. Immigrants master complexity. Late bloomers bring fresh perspective. Yet our filters discard them before they contribute.
Thomas Armstrong, renowned neurodiversity author and educational psychologist, puts it bluntly in Neurodiversity: “Neurodiversity is as crucial for humanity as biodiversity is for life. Who knows if a fully autistic forest or ADHD-charged humanity isn’t exactly what the planet needs now? We treat cognitive diversity like an invasive species when it might be the keystone one”.
“We treat human potential like a Spotify algorithm: only the ‘hits’ get airtime, everything else gets skipped. Then we wonder why everything sounds the same.”
The Inlier Problem
Gladwell studied outliers: exceptional success despite the odds. The far larger problem is ordinary failure at scale: capable people who falter in systems blind to their capabilities.
This is the inlier problem. These aren’t talentless individuals. They’re people caught in environments with broken recognition mechanisms.
Consider:
- The dyslexic entrepreneur denied a bank loan because her paperwork looks “messy”, despite years of profitable business results.
- The autistic software developer passed over for promotion because she “doesn’t speak up in meetings”, while quietly delivering the team’s best code.
- The ADHD analyst fired as “not a culture fit”, after spotting a critical flaw everyone else missed.
These aren’t outliers failing. They’re inliers exposing system failure. And the pattern extends beyond neurodivergence:
- The night owl fading in early morning meetings.
- The introvert overlooked for leadership because she’s “not visible enough”.
- The working‑class hire dismissed for lacking “executive presence”.
- The self‑taught expert rejected for missing formal credentials.
Scott Barry Kaufman, psychologist and creativity researcher, pinpoints this pattern in Ungifted: “Standardized systems filter out the twice-exceptional, mistaking their struggles for lack of ability, overlooking their extraordinary potential”.
Every case is a capitalization failure. Talent exists. Systems fail to see it. We brand the outcome “merit”.
Medicalizing System Failure
The predictable response to this capitalization failure is medicalization: therapy to help individuals “cope” with flawed systems, rather than redesigning systems to eliminate much of the need for coping. CBT for workplace anxiety. Medication for focus. Social skills training to “fit in”. Executive coaching for “executive presence”.
This isn’t compassion, it’s outsourcing. We’ve made adaptation the individual’s burden, not the institution’s responsibility. Consider the logic: If roughly 20% of people struggle in your system, the issue isn’t primarily the people. It’s the system.
Yet instead of redesign, we:
- Diagnose the 20%.
- Prescribe interventions.
- Charge them for the privilege.
- Pat ourselves on the back for “awareness”.
Meanwhile, many well‑intentioned initiatives fall short or backfire. “Neurodiversity programs” that demand disclosure in stigmatizing cultures. “Flexible work policies” that still track hours over output. “Inclusive hiring” that funnels résumés through the same biased AI tools we built to replace human judgment.
The help isn’t truly helping. It’s a Band‑Aid on a structural fracture, and we’re billing the wounded for the bandages.
Principles of Anti-Waste
The problem isn’t neurodivergent minds or unconventional thinkers. It’s systems blind to their own limits. The fix lies not in accommodations, but in universal design principles that lift outcomes for everyone.
1. Assess What Matters, Not What’s Measurable
Replace credential filters with skill-based, real-world tasks. Want to know if someone can code? Have them code. Want problem-solvers? Give them problems.
Why this works:
• Neurodivergent candidates skip conformity traps.
• Career-changers prove actual skills.
• Self-taught experts get recognized.
• Late bloomers aren’t docked for non-linear paths.
Example: Microsoft’s autism hiring program skips traditional interviews for multi-day, team-based problem-solving. Google dropped degree requirements for most roles, unlocking capability over credentials. Result: access to talent the industry had filtered out; not charity, but competitive edge.
This isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about accurate measurement. We’ve been measuring the wrong things.
2. Design for Variance, Not for Average
Create adaptive, not rigid, structures. Sensory regulation options. Asynchronous communication channels. Flexible scheduling. Results-based evaluation rather than presence-based.
Why this works:
• Neurodivergent people access optimal working conditions.
• Parents balance caregiving and contribution.
• Night owls work when they’re sharpest.
• Introverts contribute without performing extroversion.
• Chronic illness doesn’t mean capability loss.
Example: Finland’s “phenomenon-based learning” (no isolated subjects, just integrated projects) works better for all students, not just neurodivergent ones. It aligns with natural curiosity rather than industrial scheduling.
Example: Results-Only Work Environments (ROWE) eliminate presenteeism. Measure output, not hours. Result: productivity increases, turnover decreases, and people who were “difficult to manage” become top performers.
Example: Curb cuts were designed for wheelchairs. But they help everyone: strollers, luggage, delivery carts, cyclists, elderly people. Universal design isn’t accommodation. It’s better design.
3. Invert the Deficit Model
Stop asking “What’s wrong with this person?“. Start asking “What’s wrong with this system?“.
Why this works: When you assume the person is the problem, you try to fix the person. When you assume the system might be the problem, you question your assumptions.
• High turnover in a role? Maybe the role is poorly designed.
• Consistent “culture fit” rejections? Maybe your culture is a monoculture.
• Frequent “communication issues”? Maybe your communication norms exclude valid styles.
• Endless “performance improvement plans”? Maybe your performance metrics are broken.
Example: A tech company noticed neurodivergent hires struggled in open-plan offices but thrived remotely. Instead of more “focus training”, they redesigned office spaces with quiet zones and gave everyone remote options. Productivity increased across the board, not just for neurodivergent employees.
This isn’t about neurodivergence. It’s about systemic learning. When 20% of people struggle, they’re giving you feedback. Are you listening?
The Implementation Gap
Most of these solutions aren’t new. Finland’s phenomenon-based learning has been running for decades. Microsoft’s autism hiring program launched in 2015. ROWE experiments date to the mid-2000s.
So why isn’t everyone doing this?
Because implementation is hard. It demands:
• Admitting current systems are broken (uncomfortable for people who succeeded in them)
• Upfront investment (even when ROI is clear)
• Cultural change (slower than policy change)
• Distributed knowledge (scattered across disciplines, hard to synthesize)
• Practical tools (turning principles into practice)
The information exists. It’s just fragmented, hard to access, and harder to execute.
This is where the work needs to happen. Not more TED Talks and awareness campaigns, but rather: pragmatic, accessible, integrated tools that translate principles into practice. Centralized knowledge that doesn’t require people to become experts in neuroscience, organizational psychology, and systems design just to create a functional environment.
We need infrastructure, not inspiration.
The Race Between Catastrophe and Instruction
H.G. Wells was blunt: Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe.
He meant formal schooling, but the real race is bigger. It’s between capitalizing on human potential — all of it — and collapse. We’ve always had the talent. We simply lack systems that see it. But we have the instruction manual: Gladwell’s “Outliers” didn’t just analyze success patterns. It mapped how we waste ability through invisible filters such as birth months, access, hours. He educated us. Others have built on it: universal design, anti-waste principles, inlier recognition. These aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re instructions to educate our systems.
Neurodivergent minds aren’t a side issue: they’re the canary in the coalmine. When 1/5 of humanity gets pathologized as “difficult” while grinding through mismatched systems, that’s not a HR glitch. That’s a civilization choking on its own blind spots.
Education — real education — teaches systems to capitalize, not conform. Catastrophe waits for monocultures. Instruction builds antifragile civilizations.
Right now, we design for the 80% and wonder why the 20% struggles.
The race demands we flip it: design for the 20% first, and watch the 80% thrive anyway.
This is the third in a series exploring how our systems waste human potential:
1 The Lateral Motive: Why Our Frameworks Miss Half the Story
2 The 20% Question: When Divergent Becomes Normal
3 The Capitalization Crisis: How We Waste Human Potential
What’s your take? Where do you see capitalization failure in your own context? I’m collecting patterns and building tools to address this — your insights shape the solution; feel free to let me know.
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