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Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

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Re: Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

#71

Post by bigbird »

ovi256 wrote: post #51
knowtheory wrote: post #19

My apologies for straying near politics but i think Yegge's just defined the best characterization of the 1% :P > In some sense you wouldn’t even be human anymore. People like Jeff are better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in human affairs. The difference between this description and Yegge's later description of Bezos as being like the Dread Pirate Roberts of Princess Bride fame, is t…

Sorry, but you're way over-optimistic if you think the 1% has the kind of intelligence (and I'm not talking pure IQ) and focus Bezos has. Bezos is more like 0.01%. And I'd venture to say that the OWS movement wouldn't have much against Bezos. They're more against fratboys that rose to prominence and wealth through connections. And finance. Yeah, definitely finance. It's there that they sense some kind of unwarranted…

Bezos started out on "Wall St", working at D.E. Shaw in NYC.

Re: Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

#72

Post by shasta »

moomin wrote: post #57
bad_user wrote: post #49

The last step before you’re ready to present to him is this: Delete every third paragraph. This must have been excruciatingly difficult for Yegge :-)

Harder for the the guy with only two paragraphs, though...

Easier, I'd say. I was hoping "I deleted eery third paragraph" was going to be his response to "why isn't data mining on here?".

Re: Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

#73

Post by nicferrier »

gaius wrote: post #55
jonah wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good illustration of no matter how brilliant the leader is, a bad team under them and/or poor execution can lead to failure. Even with this infighting and whatnot going on Amazon is still doing amazing things. I'd be interesting to see what it'd look like if they were able to execute everything well. It seems that's also a crucial role of the exec - if they see something that needs to be happening and it's n…

How does a good leader end up with a bad team? That's worth understanding.

bad leadership?

Re: Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

#74

Post by davidw »

bgarbiak wrote: post #16
spicyj wrote: post #2

Combined with all the talk of Isaacson's new Steve Jobs biography, makes me want to read an in-depth biography of Bezos's life.

Comes out next week: http://www.amazon.com/One-Click-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon-com/dp/159...

I'm actually more interested to read this, for several reasons:

Much of the "Steve Jobs story" is quite public already - it's stuff that you just can't help knowing. Reed, Wozniak, kicked out of Apple, Next, Pixar, etc... I'm sure the bio will have some new details, but the basic plot is pretty well known.

Jeff Bezos, OTOH, is someone I know relatively little about. Also, given that my nascent LiberWriter business deals with Kindle formatting, decisions those guys are making have a very real impact on me.

Re: Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

#77

Post by sapphirecat »

Contrary to what he wrote here, Steve actually has ragged on Amazon in the past, in particular in "Have You Ever Legalized Marijuana?" -- the imagery of Amazon doing things by burning through people like little tea-lights really stuck in my mind.

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali...

Re: Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

#78

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

OoTheNigerian wrote: post #70
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that anger often sounds more authentic but anyone who has ever been angry will testify that what you say when you're angry (or even just irritated) doesn't necessarily reflect your actual view, just one facet of it. Yegge's original piece was making a specific point and he came out with examples that supported that but that doesn't mean that those examples represent Yegge's overall view of Bezos and it…

So how do you suggest you convey true emotions through words while being diplomatic? As we both agree 'considered' posts can eliminate the true feeling. I do not think only anger can be conveyed. I am not being specific about this very situation. And I agree that being diplomatic can be more effective most times. Edited: To provide contest for question.

I don't think considered posts do eliminate the true feeling.

They eliminate the visceral, immediate reaction but that's only one part of the truth. If you're angry (or happy) at someone that's certainly a true feeling but is it any truer than the way you feel 10 minutes later when you've calmed down a bit and considered things?

If a colleague irritates me and I shout at him sure that's a representation of part of what I feel at that moment, but it doesn't represent the fact that ultimately I respect them and they normally do great work. So is shouting at them really my true feeling or just one small element of it that ultimately doesn't represent what I feel very well at all?

Ultimately though I think you have to ask yourself what am I try to achieve, how is what I'm going to say going to achieve that and am I happy that it really does represent "the truth" or is it just a knee jerk reaction (good or bad).

Re: Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

#79

Post by kalleboo »

bigbird wrote: post #71
ovi256 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but you're way over-optimistic if you think the 1% has the kind of intelligence (and I'm not talking pure IQ) and focus Bezos has. Bezos is more like 0.01%. And I'd venture to say that the OWS movement wouldn't have much against Bezos. They're more against fratboys that rose to prominence and wealth through connections. And finance. Yeah, definitely finance. It's there that they sense some kind of unwarranted…

Bezos started out on "Wall St", working at D.E. Shaw in NYC.

And then he left.
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