Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 117 posts

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#51

Post by znpy »

B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38
davnicwil wrote: post #26

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

This, so much.

Not to undermine their success, but people tend to skip where their success come from, besides brightness. I mean, you can be as bright as possible, but of course if your parents are the first one investing on you (investing cash, I mean) then everything it's a lot easier.

This happens at various levels of course.

I recently had a conversation with an ex-colleague that had just left the company and was considering moving abroad. He said he had some money saved and I was shocked to hear how much he had saved. When I came back home, feeling quite miserable I must admit, I ran the numbers and understood the where the difference in his savings and mine came from: put simply, I had to move from another region of my nation to where I currently live and work, while he's just from here. The difference merely came from not being forced to pay a rent every month and on top of that, saving more money on others things he just didn't have to pay. There's nothing bad about that per se of course, I just felt a bit bitter because I understood that no matter how good or hard I work, that's a privilege gap I will probably never fill.

Privilege is something many people don't realise, and don't realise how big of an impact it makes.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#52

Post by expertentipp »

B0btheBuilder wrote: post #47
expertentipp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We often forget that basically always brilliant successful kids have solid fundaments in form of their parents, affluent in the financial and legal domains. Even then they don't always succeed - remember that British kid who sold a recommendation engine to Yahoo? The rags-to-riches in the industry doesn't exist, move along people.

>remember that British kid who sold a recommendation engine to Yahoo? Nick D'Aloisio? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio ) I was confused when you mentioned him, then I realized you think he didn't succeed because he's not a billionaire or didn't create the next Facebook. Young millionaire studying at Oxford? I would trade places with that dude in a heartbeat. From everything I'm reading on his Wikipedia…

As you are on British Facebook, that would be Friends Reunited. Not created by British peasants either.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#53

Post by manmal »

expertentipp wrote: post #43
B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

We often forget that basically always brilliant successful kids have solid fundaments in form of their parents, affluent in the financial and legal domains. Even then they don't always succeed - remember that British kid who sold a recommendation engine to Yahoo? The rags-to-riches in the industry doesn't exist, move along people.

Yes, because poor (or not-well-off) people have this enormous respect of money, and of people who have accumulated lots of it. They don’t want to waste this investor‘s time, and they are scared of asking customers for money.

Well-off people don’t have these problems. That random investor is just like their dad, plus or minus the Rolex, and they know their language („Have you been to Martha’s this year?“). Asking for money is not a problem either because they never experienced the process of spending money as painful - their worldview is that you have a certain budget to spend, and when it’s gone you either wait a bit or get some more.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#54

Post by crispyambulance »

B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38
davnicwil wrote: post #26

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

    > When you come from privilege, it's much easier to have confidence that things will work out.
I'm not convinced that it's possible to conclude much about success from examining the biographies of billionaires. They're such extreme outliers.

But yeah, the advantage of privilege is very real and you don't need Bill Gates to prove it.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#55

Post by SomewhatLikely »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #41
B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, went to a normal magnet school like I did.

That could come off a little tone deaf since many school districts likely can't afford magnet schools.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#56

Post by cafebabbe »

jameslk wrote: post #39
pdonis wrote: post #35

So the evidence this article is based on is...a Reddit thread? Excuse me? Somebody is certainly winging it without knowing what they're doing.

Yes I'm also confused by this article (opinion piece?) and the comments here (also mostly opinions). I'm pretty sure I'm not just winging it when I do my job. But I guess we don't really have a formal definition of "winging it" to have a meaningful conversation about what that is exactly.

Aha, but, to paraphrase the internet-favorite Dunning-Kruger effect, thinking you're not winging it is the most severe way of winging it :)

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#57

Post by expertentipp »

manmal wrote: post #53
expertentipp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We often forget that basically always brilliant successful kids have solid fundaments in form of their parents, affluent in the financial and legal domains. Even then they don't always succeed - remember that British kid who sold a recommendation engine to Yahoo? The rags-to-riches in the industry doesn't exist, move along people.

Yes, because poor (or not-well-off) people have this enormous respect of money, and of people who have accumulated lots of it. They don’t want to waste this investor‘s time, and they are scared of asking customers for money. Well-off people don’t have these problems. That random investor is just like their dad, plus or minus the Rolex, and they know their language („Have you been to Martha’s this year?“). Asking for…

It's about consequences as well. Someone not-affluent and not-well-connected will not be able to wash off the liability for burning down millions.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#58

Post by amelius »

Flozzin wrote: post #40

This article reminds me of a clip from an interview with Obama recently. https://youtu.be/N7ZHDoNhScY?t=716 He states that he expected people in charge would be more informed or smarter as he progressed up the chain from community organizer to world leader. But in his experience they did not. In his words, "It was all the same people." Another person that touches on this idea is Adam Corolla. His often states his obs…

Perhaps he witnessed the Peter Principle, [1].

And having been at the top himself, the principle doesn't apply to him personally.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#59

Post by [deleted] »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #41
B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, went to a normal magnet school like I did.

[deleted]

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#60

Post by walrus01 »

B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38
davnicwil wrote: post #26

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

Gates also went to one of the most expensive, rich kids' private schools in the Seattle area:

https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-private-high-scho...

Post reply on HN