Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. - Thomas Edison It's not so original and it sounds like it was copied/pasted from an old quote 100 years ago
Linus literally talks about Edison and that quote in the article
Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
111–120 of 180 posts
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linus is right that it's about the work you put in, but he's wrong if he thinks Tesla didn't work hard to develop his visualization abilities There's a myth that some people are born with amazing powers (Tesla, Einstein) but what people don't see is the hours they put in from a young age Therefore, both Tesla and Edison worked hard, except Edison bragged about it
Of course he bragged about it. He actually wanted people to use his technology to fund other ventures. Whats the point of creating things if no one actually knows about it?
You could say that if an invention is any good it speaks for itself, in which case you've saved yourself the effort of bragging and people still get to know about it
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#113Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#114Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
Beer and chocolate in there somewhere?
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but the fact is that he has attained far less value than he's created. This goes for an extremely large portion of humanity, probably > 99.99%. Very few people manage to extract all of the value they created (and sometimes more), and most of those people are not the nicest ones.
Really? I would say that a large portion of people who live in a society extract more value from it than they put in. If you are just merely doing your job you are not making any extra value. I could work hard as a hunter-gatherer, or work hard programming, but either way I'm just doing my job. In the second case I'm just using the infrastructure that other people have set up to be able to live a much happier life by…
> If you are just merely doing your job you are not making any extra value.
That's got to be the most ignorant comment on HN in a very long time. Really? Think for just two seconds: Do you think a person would be employed at all if they did not make more value than they took home (including taxes and all that)?
The whole reason our economy works at all is BECAUSE people make more value than they take home. If not for that there would be zero employment.
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course he bragged about it. He actually wanted people to use his technology to fund other ventures. Whats the point of creating things if no one actually knows about it?
You could say that if an invention is any good it speaks for itself, in which case you've saved yourself the effort of bragging and people still get to know about it
Good inventions usually look bad from outset. Otherwise someone else would have come up with them much earlier. So, you still need to sell your inventions and get people to see the potential.
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#117Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
"That's 105%!" - Mrs. Teevee
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Chinese made a whole industry out of executing without visionaries. It's called cloning products of visionaries. Or slightly improving them based on marketing feedback.
Everybody starts with copying. You need a certain amount of proficiency in a given subject to be able to innovate. China will get there at scale too.
They start with a bit of copying then follow with originality. This is true even for high schoolers doing programming in US. China's copiers in imdustry didnt for a long time. So, it's not as simple as you suggested. Shenzhen is in opposite situation where it's both cloning and innovating so fast there's no stability in offerings.
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#119I deeply respect and admire Torvalds, but in the corporate world, the hypey/trendy thing helps tech people getting important changes approved by upper management, at least in my experience. I work in a tech company whose culture is primarily driven to productivity (read: getting business features delivered using the established stack and tools, as quick as possible). There is certainly an upside to it, but it produce…
How did you get an architecture team assembled? How does it help people make better decisions?
Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation
#120Chris Anderson: So you spoke to me last week about these two guys. Who are they and how do you relate to them? Linus Torvalds: Well, so this is kind of cliché in technology, the whole Tesla versus Edison, where Tesla is seen as the visionary scientist and crazy idea man. And people love Tesla. I mean, there are people who name their companies after him. The other person there is Edison, who is actually often vilified…
Edison and Tesla both changed the world. Tesla (and Ferraris) are responsible for the invention of first viable AC motor, without which we would rely on DC for our grid.