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Fierce Nerds

paulgraham.com

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Re: Fierce Nerds

#351

Post by dfxm12 »

lostlogin wrote: post #325
wiggumspiggums wrote: post #278

"Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?" -Jeff Bezos https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/05/30/2010-baccalaureate... "Fierce nerds" can be valuable. Sure. But the folks who truly stand out in my mind are a level higher. They're the ones at the top of their game, who know how to demand & command excellence, without being jerks about it. I'm reminded of this episode of "The Chef Show" where J…

> "Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?" -Jeff Bezos That an interesting read, thanks. I struggle to square what Bezos is saying with what Amazon has become. He is clearly incredibly clever but appears devoid of any kindness toward his low level employees. Am I missing something?

Am I missing something?

Probably how good his publicist is.

If I'm being really cynical, Jeff is suggesting these Princeton grads be kind so that he may become clever at their expense.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#352

Post by elteto »

ziziyO wrote: post #333
whatshisface wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG, if you asked him, might describe himself as defending people who do real work from a larger culture that all too often prioritizes serving the status quo over accomplishing the goals that the status quo was established to accomplish. One example of that would be SpaceX doing the launch vehicle design work that the NASA/Boeing/Big Government Contractor complex was established to do. At the same time, SpaceX works…

Why can’t we have both? A job where we can “actually do stuff” without getting mistreated by psychotic billionaires. There’s a lack of compassion in tech.

Assuming you are in the US: I’d say that, if anything, tech is a fantastic little bubble when compared to the rest of corporate America. We, the “nerds”, exert a level of control over our work/careers that is unparalleled in other industries. We have plenty of opportunities available if we dislike our current situation. Tech companies provide excellent benefits and compensation. Maybe only doctors have the same level of mobility/compensation.

You will always be mistreated by someone if you work for a corporation. We have it easier than almost everybody else, really.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#353

Post by noumenized »

altonzheng wrote: post #330
getpost wrote: post #294

Since pg's essay is of a psychoanalytic nature, I'll reply in a psychoanalytic frame, for the sake of conversation, not criticism. [Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even to psychoanalysts.] During the last year or two pg has written more than a few essays and tweets which appear to be of a defensive nature. People like him contribute more than other people, it's alright to to be fierce, can't s…

> Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even to psychoanalysts. Beside your point, but wondering if you could expand on this. I have a tendency to do this, and while it's fun, I'm starting to get the sense that it's a bad habit, possibly because I sense I'm overly confident on something that might be 100% wrong and it feels... invasive?

Not OP, but as someone who holds this view (who also used to engage in the practice): a lot of armchair psychoanalysis is based less on a genuine understanding of the other person's life and circumstances, and more on the assumption of what their life and circumstances must be combined with a surface-level knowledge of psychoanalytic practice.

Armchair psychoanalysis ostensibly seeks to understand the subject of analysis, but rarely makes the effort to first understand the subject on their terms or in a way where they can articulate their own experience; instead, someone usually has their presumptive conclusion about the subject in mind ("they're just doing this because they haven't gotten over being bullied as a kid" or whatever), and tries to wrangle the limited information they have about that person into their conclusion.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#354

Post by samatman »

thesausageking wrote: post #201
mcguire wrote: post #126

" I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that your fierceness will be a great help in solving difficult problems. And not just the kind of scientific and technical problems that nerds have traditionally solved. As the world progresses, the number of things you can win at by getting the right answer increases. Recently getting rich became one of them: 7 of the 8 richest people in America are now fi…

PG hacked the VC system so he didn't have to be a dealmaker. YC has standard terms so there's no haggling on price, pro rata, board seats, or anything else. They've automated a lot of what they do via software and their network. And because of the content they put out and the reputation they've built, founders from all over the world come to them and accept much worse terms than any normal VC would offer.

The big question is whether this leads to better overall outcomes.

If the company fails, or is aquihired by the skin of its teeth, it doesn't matter which terms the various rounds offered when.

YC is perceived as offering a greater chance of success, a combination of being plugged into a large network of alumni and having the halo effect which comes from getting into a cohort.

As long as that perception is there, founders will keep taking the deal. If that perception is accurate, then they're smart to: and the terms aren't worse than any normal VC would offer, they're better.

So there's a lot riding on that being true, which I have no special insight into. Having to guess, I suspect it's less true than it used to be.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#355

Post by noumenized »

m_fayer wrote: post #350
altonzheng wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even to psychoanalysts. Beside your point, but wondering if you could expand on this. I have a tendency to do this, and while it's fun, I'm starting to get the sense that it's a bad habit, possibly because I sense I'm overly confident on something that might be 100% wrong and it feels... invasive?

I've asked myself the same question. While I don't go as far as "never", I do it much less than I used to. Thinking this way can certainly lead to worthwhile and actionable insights. But I think any skilled amateur will overestimate their abilities. Therapists build their insights on top of huge amounts of biographical information that they gather in intense, concentrated sessions. Their observational skills are trai…

"Therapists build their insights on top of huge amounts of biographical information that they gather in intense, concentrated sessions."

Agreed with all of your post, I think this is the most crucial point here. Genuine, skilled psychoanalysis is less about being some master discerner of psychological motives, and instead being very good at giving the subject of analysis a lot of psychological safety to express their innermost thoughts and most personal life experiences. Unless you build that kind of (responsible and professional) intimacy for lack of a better term, you're largely just projecting imo.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#356

Post by pseudalopex »

ping_pong wrote: post #336
lostlogin wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?" -Jeff Bezos That an interesting read, thanks. I struggle to square what Bezos is saying with what Amazon has become. He is clearly incredibly clever but appears devoid of any kindness toward his low level employees. Am I missing something?

Are you only believing what you read in the media or do you know people that actually work at Amazon? The fact that Amazon employees in a warehouse rejected unionization speaks volumes. And I know plenty of Amazon engineers that love working there. To put it in perspective, there may be employees that hate working at Amazon, but there are also 100,000 employees. If only 10% of the employees hated working there, that'…

I know people who work at Amazon. Not even the people who like it say it's kind.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#357

Post by dataflow »

greyhair wrote: post #347

I worked with a number of brilliant people at Bell Labs through the 1980s/1990s. The most comfortably competent among them, the most productive among them, were also the least abrasive. They were also the most self deprecating. Not just one or two, but the majority of them. To the point that the aggressive geniuses stood out. And I worked for/with two abrasive ones as well, so I know the difference. The same was true…

> The difficult people were never stupid, far from it, but they felt like they needed to defend everything they did, every decision they made, and that made working with them less productive.

I assume the implication here is that the productive folks didn't necessarily defend everything they did, and thus went with other people's solutions sometimes even when their own was better? Is that what you're trying to convey? or should I be reading it differently? Curious how their behavior contrasted in your experience.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#358

Post by version_five »

slfnflctd wrote: post #342
wutbrodo wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, this isn't my experience at all. There's a difference between being an asshole and the contrarian bent+ relatively-minor rough edges Graham describes. The essay touches on this, by saying that it's become a lot easier to thrive as this sort of person than it used to be. In particular, you need to find your way to a field and role where results matter more than glad-handing and ego-stroking, and where the subjec…

> measuring output is polluted by interpersonal skills Also, many of those 'skills' are nothing more than shared cultural backgrounds and/or biases.

This is exactly what the original essay said:

> It's hard to be independent-minded without being somewhat socially awkward, because conventional beliefs are so often mistaken, or at least arbitrary. No one who was both independent-minded and ambitious would want to waste the effort it takes to fit in

Re: Fierce Nerds

#359

Post by pseudalopex »

eloff wrote: post #343
getpost wrote: post #294

Since pg's essay is of a psychoanalytic nature, I'll reply in a psychoanalytic frame, for the sake of conversation, not criticism. [Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even to psychoanalysts.] During the last year or two pg has written more than a few essays and tweets which appear to be of a defensive nature. People like him contribute more than other people, it's alright to to be fierce, can't s…

Do you think he's defending himself, or the entrepreneurs he funds, befriends and admires?

I think he perceives criticism of them as criticism of him.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#360

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

ziziyO wrote: post #333
whatshisface wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG, if you asked him, might describe himself as defending people who do real work from a larger culture that all too often prioritizes serving the status quo over accomplishing the goals that the status quo was established to accomplish. One example of that would be SpaceX doing the launch vehicle design work that the NASA/Boeing/Big Government Contractor complex was established to do. At the same time, SpaceX works…

Why can’t we have both? A job where we can “actually do stuff” without getting mistreated by psychotic billionaires. There’s a lack of compassion in tech.

Maybe there is something wrong with our society that tends to cause organizational dysfunction and make it hard to do stuff. Perhaps it takes someone seriously atypical (maybe a little psychotic) to manage to build an institution that can actually accomplish things at scale in this environment. If there are 10000 well-adjusted bureaucrats standing between you and your aspiration to build electric cars and rockets, it will take some serious force of personality (a personality disorder?) to defy all of them.
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