Haters

This essay does not read like an intellectual piece at all. Poorly defined terms, labeling people, non-falsifiable psychoanalysis.

And to top it off he calls both labeled groups of people "less than men".

All of this setup to deliver the profound advice to just ignore them.

(Before people call me a "hater", note that I strictly do not meet the definition, because I like a lot of his essays.)

Somehow related, for non-US people, do you ever use or heard/read the term "loser" (or direct translation)?

My hypothesis is that it's a very American concept, as in I don't remember ever anyone outside the US/Canada use that word (same with "winner"). Like in Europe or South America for ex people would say somebody is a deadbeat or terrible at their job or lazy but not a loser (this may be just in my head).

> He's not bashing microsoft out of a generic sense that "microsoft is bad"

Jobs did a lot of that in his “we are pirates” phase. Us-v-them is a legitimate leadership tactic, and requires somewhat demonising the them.

I like the idea of a fanboy being a sign-flipped hater. But these are spherical cows. I’m not sure we can draw real-life lessons from their comparison.

(For example, fanboys can be evangelists and haters canaries in your coal mine. History is filled with delusional people doing great things.)

I'm surprised at the harsh negativity in this article. Not that the inquiry into why people become 'haters' isn't intriguing, but to explore it so shallowly and to boil it down to "Well, they are losers", and call in the image of "basement dwellers" frankly, makes pg sound like he is falling into the same trap he is trying to write about - generic hating on others.

Despite that, his other points have merit. Haters and fanboys do have similarities - they stem from the same root cause, that they were emotionally impacted by someone. If that was a positive impact at a time in their life when they really needed it, they are fanboys. If it was a negative impact at a time when they were already struggling, they become haters.

I'm not a fanboy of pg, just a reader, so I'm not going to act like he has let us down by penning a weaker article. We're all imperfect beings, whether we are fanboys, haters, or blog authors whose works isn't always the best. I'm going to look at this specific post as a rough draft that got shared too soon.

> Listening to that old Steve Jobs interview where he talks about Microsoft

It's appropriate for Steve Jobs to talk about Microsoft, because they were competitors, out in the arena. Steve Jobs himself is famous. So this a different situation than the classic hater scenario, where a person of no fame attacks a person of some fame. Still, maybe Steve sounds like a sore loser, which is basically what Paul Graham said that haters are.

But I watched and listened to Steve Jobs a lot, and I read his biography. And he reminds me of myself, although outwardly I am polite and back down in debates. Basically Steve Jobs says what I think. I like minimalism and simplicity and perfection and beauty. Steve Jobs was rich, but you have to admit he was different than your average mediocre rich executive. I think he was motivated by beauty more than wealth, as am I.

Furthermore, Microsoft is the antithesis of all my values. Whereas I would spend too much time and money to make things perfect, they would cut corners to make more money. I hoped for my product to gain fame by merit, Microsoft relied on advertising and business tactics to run everyone else out of town.

And so my takeaway of Steve Jobs is just what you would think: Thank you for saying what I was feeling! I think he hated Microsoft, but not because he cared about money or fame but because it frustrated his attempts to spread beauty and perfection everywhere. (Lest that sounds way too nice, I would qualify it by saying that someone can pursue beauty selfishly, at the expense of the people around you.)

DISCLAIMER: I'm a fanboy of Steve Jobs.