Swarms can learn even if none of the individuals do.

Ego gets in the way of learning hard truths, but hard truths calibrate you to innovate as an individual.

Hard truths are disconfirming evidence.

They calibrate your gut instinct.

And yet the swarm that finds amazing things is full of individuals with massive egos that don't learn. Why?

The former is about individual innovation.

The latter is about swarm innovation.

At the end of both, there will be individuals who have done amazing things.

The latter will be someone with a big ego that didn't learn, but that's OK because they were post-hoc selected by the swarm based on randomly winning the lottery before the start.

The expected value of the swarm members' tickets at the start are tiny, since most will be worth nothing.

As an individual, you have only one ticket, so to maximize the expected value of that ticket you need to have low ego and be willing to absorb your failures and learn.

As a swarm, you don't have to care about the individuals being willing to learn, as long as there's no shortage of people willing to try.