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Paint Drip People

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Re: Paint Drip People

#21

Post by istjohn »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #20

A particular type of essay that HN is an absolute sucker for — an awesome type of person that you're supposed to identify with. Paint Drip Person. T-Shaped Person. Paul Graham has also written a bunch of these, so maybe it's just in the DNA of the site. I guess the classical example of this is the renaissance man, but that at least required different fields like art and science and not different kinds of programming.

Yes, these post-hoc explanations for why someone is successful allow us to indulge in fantasies of success without providing any actionable advice that has actual empirical evidence.

Re: Paint Drip People

#22

Post by gottorf »

istjohn wrote: post #21
amadeuspagel wrote: post #20

A particular type of essay that HN is an absolute sucker for — an awesome type of person that you're supposed to identify with. Paint Drip Person. T-Shaped Person. Paul Graham has also written a bunch of these, so maybe it's just in the DNA of the site. I guess the classical example of this is the renaissance man, but that at least required different fields like art and science and not different kinds of programming.

Yes, these post-hoc explanations for why someone is successful allow us to indulge in fantasies of success without providing any actionable advice that has actual empirical evidence.

Why such a needlessly pessimistic view? I think this "paint drip" imagery is a cute way to describe the characteristics of success described therein.

Re: Paint Drip People

#23

Post by adfm »

istjohn wrote: post #21
amadeuspagel wrote: post #20

A particular type of essay that HN is an absolute sucker for — an awesome type of person that you're supposed to identify with. Paint Drip Person. T-Shaped Person. Paul Graham has also written a bunch of these, so maybe it's just in the DNA of the site. I guess the classical example of this is the renaissance man, but that at least required different fields like art and science and not different kinds of programming.

Yes, these post-hoc explanations for why someone is successful allow us to indulge in fantasies of success without providing any actionable advice that has actual empirical evidence.

I still get a kick out of the fact that the person that came up with Nerd Merit Badges is the same person that came up with the term fullstack and almost nobody mentions it or even gets the original meaning of the term.

Re: Paint Drip People

#24

Post by thrashh »

gottorf wrote: post #22
istjohn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, these post-hoc explanations for why someone is successful allow us to indulge in fantasies of success without providing any actionable advice that has actual empirical evidence.

Why such a needlessly pessimistic view? I think this "paint drip" imagery is a cute way to describe the characteristics of success described therein.

Well let’s say I find a super successful restaurant that makes its burritos one way. I’m amazed. I’m inspired. I write a book about it and describe the specific ways that they do things that make them successful.

Then a few years later, I find another super successful burrito restaurant. They make it completely opposite to what I wrote in my book.

It turns out the reasons for success runs deeper than the superficial things that you see people do day to day.

For every successful person that reads a book a week, there’s probably 5 that just laze on the couch.

Re: Paint Drip People

#25

Post by Applejinx »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #20

A particular type of essay that HN is an absolute sucker for — an awesome type of person that you're supposed to identify with. Paint Drip Person. T-Shaped Person. Paul Graham has also written a bunch of these, so maybe it's just in the DNA of the site. I guess the classical example of this is the renaissance man, but that at least required different fields like art and science and not different kinds of programming.

It's a certain kind of content. I might invoke Godin's Law (not Godwin, Godin): the evocation of an idea feels better and more significant if you leave it extremely vague, and draw no useful conclusions from it :)

Put any of this stuff into practice and you run into practical issues, and it's way less interesting.

I'm definitely a paint drip dude and it's not at all useful. In the absence of a team of cultists to do my bidding, any paint drip that stops is then useless to go further, and the metaphor breaks down. It becomes 'abstractly looking at a pile of uncompleted projects', and even when my job is coming up with stuff of that nature, I have to finish the stuff for it to matter, even to me.

Don't be a drip: 'real artists ship' :)

Re: Paint Drip People

#26

Post by istjohn »

gottorf wrote: post #22
istjohn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, these post-hoc explanations for why someone is successful allow us to indulge in fantasies of success without providing any actionable advice that has actual empirical evidence.

Why such a needlessly pessimistic view? I think this "paint drip" imagery is a cute way to describe the characteristics of success described therein.

There are worse vices than indulging in self-help cotton candy, but we should see it for what it is.

Re: Paint Drip People

#27

Post by Applejinx »

riebschlager wrote: post #6
jhinra wrote: post #4

This analogy seems like a stretch. An artist that has paint dripping from their strokes strikes me as sloppy. Is this analogy really tied to a single specific type of painting?

I believe the analogy is more a reference to the shape of paint drips as seen in the image on the page. The T model of skills has a single "descender" that represents deep knowledge in a single topic, whereas paint drips represent varying depths of knowledge in several areas.

It's a good enough analogy to go deeper than that. The T model is an intentional, planned descender. The paint drip thing implies that you don't know which drips are going to go where, or what will turn up. It's a more flexible approach that will be quicker to seize on underlying conditions people are just beginning to discover. The terrain defines what you end up doing, and if something takes off, the paint drip types are going to be all over it, even though it's not planned.

It's not that useful of an observation because you must then ask what you're going to do about it, but it is a valid observation all the same. This mode of being does exist. My career's based on being that, and also putting in the effort to finish things: otherwise it would be pure dilettantism.

Re: Paint Drip People

#28

Post by Applejinx »

zdw wrote: post #10

How is this different from "senior generalist who did a few deep dives in specific areas and projects"?

The unplanned nature of the areas and projects. Doing deep dives implies agency. The concept here is that the paint drips are unpredictable and unexpected, which could lead to significance and could just be a waste of time :)

Re: Paint Drip People

#29

Post by chrisweekly »

throwway120385 wrote: post #19
neilv wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a not-unusual theory, but it's bumping into something I'd really like to avoid (especially on HN), which is negative generalizations of different age/gender/racial/familystatus/etc. demographics in business contexts. (In the US, a super HR person's Spidey Sense would tingle, and they'd fly across the building and yank the keyboard out of someone's hands, before certain sentences could be finished. Then sit down…

It's also not really helpful to generalize like that in the sense that I've known plenty of 50+ senior engineers who were very curious and very capable. And they often had a lot of advice about pitfalls to avoid when applying new technologies because they had used the same technology 20 years ago when it was called something else or sold by a different vendor. People often deride experience on here, but I've gotten a…

also (citation needed, I know), IIRC the median founder age for successful startups in a decade was like 48

Re: Paint Drip People

#30

Post by oh_sigh »

gottorf wrote: post #22
istjohn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, these post-hoc explanations for why someone is successful allow us to indulge in fantasies of success without providing any actionable advice that has actual empirical evidence.

Why such a needlessly pessimistic view? I think this "paint drip" imagery is a cute way to describe the characteristics of success described therein.

Except the "paint drip" aspect of this successful person might be entirely irrelevant to their success. Imagine if Keith ate oatmeal every day for breakfast, and there was an "Oatmeal people" article describing why eating oatmeal for breakfast is the key to Ken's success. After all, it gives him long lasting energy, having a routine can be useful, it is simple to prepare and you can think about other things while making it, etc.

Or, for every "paint drip person", you might find another person who is equally as successful and devoted their entire energy to a single project or idea.

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