Secret sauce for intelligence vs specialization in intelligence

what is the relationship between the "you can't specialize in 'intelligence'" argument and "there are a small number of insights for AGI" (a.k.a. secret sauce for intelligence) argument? is it ok to conflate these two?

if there are only a few insights till AGI (and assuming that compute isn't a bottleneck), then you can specialize in intelligence.

if there are many insights till AGI (and there is no 'last missing gear'/'one wrong number' dynamic, AND each insight makes the AI a little better), then you can't specialize in "intelligence".