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Jessica Livingston (2015)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#121

Post by skilled »

asveikau wrote: post #63
alexpotato wrote: post #37

One of the things she's best at is judging people. She's one of those rare individuals with x-ray vision for character. She can see through any kind of faker almost immediately. Her nickname within YC was the Social Radar, and this special power of hers was critical in making YC what it is A manager at a past job also had a similar "x-ray vision". During interviews, she would always sit in with another interviewer an…

I am extremely skeptical of someone who claims this ability in themselves or others. What this tells me is that someone is misjudging a lot of circumstances very confidently. You just can't understand people on a snap judgment, there are too many outliers. Imagine if we applied this kind of thinking in courts. We would convict a lot of innocent people. We wouldn't feel that we need to wait for all the facts and evide…

Meh. You're underestimating how simple people are and how easy it is to read intonation and general presence of a person. Combined with questions that apply pressure it is very easy to read a person because the very basics of a human being are inherently simple.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#122

Post by [deleted] »

fairity wrote: post #27

> No one understands female founders better than Jessica. But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the topic. She ventured a toe in that water a while ago, and the reaction was so violent that she decided "never again." I wonder how much wisdom has been lost bc of this effect. I feel like society needs to create a much larger incentive for thoughtful people to share their wisdom. Today, you st…

[deleted]

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#123

Post by [deleted] »

mandmandam wrote: post #93
burnished wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the phrase 'pearls before swine' refer basically to this situation? Basically I don't think it's something you can do in the presence of a thing like twitter because of the participants whose goal isn't communication. Which is fine. The wisdom isn't lost, its just not as widely available.

> Which is fine. The wisdom isn't lost, its just not as widely available. It's not fine though. Our political and economic spheres have been run by the swine for too long, and the planet's back is breaking. The second order effects of only giving the brash and thick-hided a voice in society are everywhere, causing permanent harms. Let's start making space for the wise and sensitive types, and make pearls abundant.

[deleted]

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#124

Post by cm2012 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #117
no_wizard wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like anyone who fits the categorization (so called INFP/F types[0]) are unlikely to the ones to tell you. That's why people who claim to have this ability almost never do. Its not in the nature of someone who can to really talk about it this way. I'd also argue that courts are definitely not the place to have this. There's good reasons why this is likely to fail in a stressful setting (convicting someone of a…

Why is Myers Briggs being referenced when it has zero substance to back it up? I thought it was common knowledge that pop psychology stuff was garbage, at least amongst this website’s readers.

That "common knowledge" is wrong. Myers briggs is not great for scientific studies since it splits people into 16 buckets instead of sliding scales (like the Big 5, which is used in research). But MB is an incredible mental toolkit to have.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#125

Post by neilv »

cm2012 wrote: post #118
neilv wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tested as INFP and INTJ. I'm not going to deny the Introvert theory part. The rest of it, I don't know how seriously to take it. I haven't studied the academic literature, and the occasional pop-psych writing about it bears some similarities to astrology writing (e.g., appeal to being special, being deep, having powers, navel-gazing, etc.).

If you're not sure about the tests, you can use this quick framework in this comment to help you find your letters. Extraverted (E) vs Introverted (I) “E” generally means gaining energy from other people, while “I” means people drain your batteries. This one is not always immediately obvious for people. In general "E"s talk more when with groups of people and "I"s think more. Even though I spend a lot of time at home…

> Sensing (S) vs Intuiting (N). This is about how you process new information. S people see what's actually in front of them - they think and talk more in specifics. In general, S types are better at detail oriented work.

What about someone who is strong intuitive, but starting the next moment they're very detail-oriented, and also the person you'd most trust for meticulous coding that had to work?

> But I find these letter rules make a great shortcut for 97% of people.

Do we want to try to hire people who have qualities that would spanning these headshrinker buckets? If so, maybe we're dealing a lot with that missing "3%", so trying to pigeon-hole people would frequently be counterproductive?

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#126

Post by neilv »

jxf wrote: post #109
neilv wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e.g. there were times where 7 out of 8 interviewers said "pass", she said "hire" and she was always right. Just noting: that situation around that assessment can affect the outcome. For example, hired person appreciates the opportunity/faith extended to them, or otherwise picks up on the need to rise to the occasion. Or a manager or other staff sees/treats the person differently because of the circumstances (e.g.,…

> For example, hired person appreciates the opportunity/faith extended to them, or otherwise picks up on the need to rise to the occasion. I don't think it would make sense to tell a hired person "you barely got in here, everybody hated you except for one interviewer".

Many people can pick up on that situation, during or after.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#127

Post by cm2012 »

neilv wrote: post #125
cm2012 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not sure about the tests, you can use this quick framework in this comment to help you find your letters. Extraverted (E) vs Introverted (I) “E” generally means gaining energy from other people, while “I” means people drain your batteries. This one is not always immediately obvious for people. In general "E"s talk more when with groups of people and "I"s think more. Even though I spend a lot of time at home…

> Sensing (S) vs Intuiting (N). This is about how you process new information. S people see what's actually in front of them - they think and talk more in specifics. In general, S types are better at detail oriented work. What about someone who is strong intuitive, but starting the next moment they're very detail-oriented, and also the person you'd most trust for meticulous coding that had to work? > But I find these…

It's like being right or left handed. And you wouldn't want to box against George Foreman even if he uses his off hand.

Intuitors just start with the big picture as their basic instinct, then fill in the details. Sensors start with detail and build up to the big picture.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#128

Post by saeranv »

notatoad wrote: post #81
asveikau wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am extremely skeptical of someone who claims this ability in themselves or others. What this tells me is that someone is misjudging a lot of circumstances very confidently. You just can't understand people on a snap judgment, there are too many outliers. Imagine if we applied this kind of thinking in courts. We would convict a lot of innocent people. We wouldn't feel that we need to wait for all the facts and evide…

Yeah, this always seems like a truism. If you give people opportunities, they will tend to succeed. If you deny people opportunities, they won’t. So anybody in the position of giving or denying opportunities to people will tend to be “right” most of the time.

Good point. So when we try and evaluate a person's "social radar", we should probably limit ourselves to cases where they are the minority dissenter and the person they dislike is given the opportunity, since it gives us the most controlled scenario in which we can evaluate their hypothesis.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#129

Post by nvy »

no_wizard wrote: post #89
asveikau wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am extremely skeptical of someone who claims this ability in themselves or others. What this tells me is that someone is misjudging a lot of circumstances very confidently. You just can't understand people on a snap judgment, there are too many outliers. Imagine if we applied this kind of thinking in courts. We would convict a lot of innocent people. We wouldn't feel that we need to wait for all the facts and evide…

I feel like anyone who fits the categorization (so called INFP/F types[0]) are unlikely to the ones to tell you. That's why people who claim to have this ability almost never do. Its not in the nature of someone who can to really talk about it this way. I'd also argue that courts are definitely not the place to have this. There's good reasons why this is likely to fail in a stressful setting (convicting someone of a…

>INFP

Hasn't Myers Briggs been debunked as a load of pseudoscience shit?

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#130

Post by iamwil »

saghm wrote: post #52
alexpotato wrote: post #37

One of the things she's best at is judging people. She's one of those rare individuals with x-ray vision for character. She can see through any kind of faker almost immediately. Her nickname within YC was the Social Radar, and this special power of hers was critical in making YC what it is A manager at a past job also had a similar "x-ray vision". During interviews, she would always sit in with another interviewer an…

> During interviews, she would always sit in with another interviewer and never ask any questions of the candidates. She would just observe. I'd honestly be a little unnerved by this as an interviewee. I've seen interview shadowing before for people first starting to interview (and in the past have both shadowed and been shadowed), but having someone watch me like that not to learn how to interview but to just focus…

The YC interviews at the time were with 4 to 6 partners. So given 10 minutes an interview, it's natural that not everyone asks questions. Jessica almost never said a thing, but would be quite attentive. So it wouldn't be unnerving that there was someone that didn't get to ask questions in the interview.
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