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Jessica Livingston (2015)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#141

Post by LukeShu »

telltruth wrote: post #138

I wish pg the best but I think everyone should know how much legal liability these kind of public writings creates. A person I know closely had 25 year marriage in CA and he always believed in love and lifelong relationship. But as their kids went to college, wife's priorities changed. She started affair, started helping out her partner financially etc. Husband discovered all these accidently from her phone. After ma…

That oft-cited statistic about divorce is misleading. Most marriages end in divorce, but most people who get married don't get divorced. It's that if you get divorced once, you're more likely to get divorced again; serial-divorcees produce a disproportionate number of marriages.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#142

Post by lotsofpulp »

cm2012 wrote: post #124
lotsofpulp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would something with no evidence behind it be an incredible mental toolkit?

See the whole criticism section.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#143

Post by shrimpx »

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…

"I felt the gut-feeling that the guy sucked, so I didn't give him a job, told my connections he sucks, and lo and behold he didn't succeed, so I was right."

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#144

Post by shrimpx »

cm2012 wrote: post #71
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…

Basically anyone who can do this kind of thing falls into INFP or INFJ in Myers-Briggs. They're just incredible at reading people. Based on the article I'd be shocked if Jessica wasn't an INFP.

Meyers Briggs is good conversation fodder, but otherwise it's on the same legitimacy plane as astrology.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#145

Post by asveikau »

shrimpx wrote: post #143
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 felt the gut-feeling that the guy sucked, so I didn't give him a job, told my connections he sucks, and lo and behold he didn't succeed, so I was right."

There's another variant of this that occurs after hiring. You don't trust them to take on a big project, so you give it to somebody else. At review time, you dock them for not having any big projects. Clearly a bottom performer.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#146

Post by ZephyrBlu »

tomhallett wrote: post #72
morley wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read before -- though right now I can't think of the source -- that if a group of interviewers are weakly against a candidate but one is strongly for them, you should trust the instincts of the person who's "strongly for." When hiring, I'd probably have that than a room of people who are weakly for a candidate on the basis that you'd rather have a person who's great at one thing than someone who's okay at everyt…

Are there any books on this topic that anyone would recommend? As a manager, this is where I struggled the most - naturally i am someone who strives to be a consensus builder, but it's hard to know when to put your thumb on the scale vs not.

Read this and you will understand why consensus often doesn't make sense in hiring: https://erikbern.com/2020/01/13/how-to-hire-smarter-than-the....

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#147

Post by jedberg »

qingcharles wrote: post #105
joshu wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was interviewed for that book! Good stuff.

Thank you for delicious. Funny note: I went to jail for 10 years. One of only about three sites (out of thousands I had accounts on) that I could log into when I was released was delicious. Sadly 99% of my bookmarks now pointed to dead wood.

Do you remember the other ones?

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#148

Post by gnicholas »

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…

> It also reminds me of a story from, I believe, Malcolm Gladwell's Blink about the tennis coach who knew before a tennis player served if they would double fault.

I believe it was from watching the serve, but not seeing where the ball went. As someone who has played tennis for many years (but not remotely professionally), it always seemed to me that the coach could simply be reading the player's expression. When you're serving, you can typically tell based on how the contact felt, and the sound it made, whether your serve was going in. It wouldn't be surprising if that could be 'read' from your face.

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#149

Post by jedberg »

eastbound wrote: post #47
carlysagan wrote: post #43

This is honestly infuriating. Why wouldn't you realize that all of the characteristics of Jessica are why women are pushed out of the start-up world from the very first day they start? Why wouldn't you realize from this experience that women are the ones providing all the reasons and ideas for why a startup might be successful, but then are swept under the rug as a wife/family member/outside consultant/etc?

[flagged]

> By comparison, I’ve always succeeded on humility.

Are you the most humble person you know?

Re: Jessica Livingston (2015)

#150

Post by sneak »

cm2012 wrote: post #124
lotsofpulp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

MB is astrology for nerds.
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