The Fields Medal Celebrates Genius. It’s Also Hiding a Dirty Secret.
The Fields Medal celebrates four young mathematicians, but the real story isn’t their brilliance — it’s the invisible infrastructure that made them possible and the systemic blind spots that make us lose countless others. The under-40 age limit creates perverse incentives, and the global talent pipeline is shockingly uneven. For anyone in tech, these winners are your upstream — and we’re squandering the source.