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Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

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Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#21

Post by wil421 »

ilaksh wrote: post #17

Good writing and ok advice for someone who wants to run a grocery business. But it is absolutely untrue that "brilliant" men cannot also be careful, detail-oriented and have good business sense and skills. And certainly innovation and risk taking can be just as critical in business as following proven formulas and paying close attention to the bottom line. It depends on the business and circumstance. Overall I think…

I think the point he was trying to make was brilliant men arent exactly:

>careful, detail-oriented and have good business sense and skills.

He was referring to the brilliant man who dress flashy, go to the hottest clubs, befriend people in higher stature, and dont really contribute to goals. They just have flashy ideas and move on to the next without realizing the goals of the first idea.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#24

Post by dasil003 »

DickingAround wrote: post #6

He bends the meaning of words like 'brilliant' a bit and clearly lives in a time where there are no such thing as protected classes (e.g. medical) but there's a lot of value in remembering that most people develop wealth by managing risk, knowing our limits, and finishing what we start.

Given that it's 90 years old I suspect there's some connotation at play here.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#25

Post by spinlock »

d23 wrote: post #19

What if you aren't a finisher? How can you become one?

Start finishing things. It sounds trite but it's true. Some of the best advice I've ever been given is: the way you do anything is the way you do everything. So, finish the smallest tasks consistently and that will carry over to the bigger tasks.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#27

Post by deadfall »

"But if you blunder for words, punctuate incorrectly, spell incorrectly, and express yourself clumsily, I'm sure to believe you mind is cluttered and ill-disciplined."

My mind is cluttered and I rely on spelling correction. Hard to say if I would get the position.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#28

Post by badman_ting »

deadfall wrote: post #27

"But if you blunder for words, punctuate incorrectly, spell incorrectly, and express yourself clumsily, I'm sure to believe you mind is cluttered and ill-disciplined." My mind is cluttered and I rely on spelling correction. Hard to say if I would get the position.

Ah yes, the school of thought that supposes the ability to distinguish between "your" and "you're" is the essence of intelligence.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#29

Post by paxtonab »

ilaksh wrote: post #17

Good writing and ok advice for someone who wants to run a grocery business. But it is absolutely untrue that "brilliant" men cannot also be careful, detail-oriented and have good business sense and skills. And certainly innovation and risk taking can be just as critical in business as following proven formulas and paying close attention to the bottom line. It depends on the business and circumstance. Overall I think…

While this article can be seen as dated in regards to the definition of success that the author posits (making himself and 20 men rich by the standards of the locality), I think that the path the author lays out to achieving that success is still very relevant to this day.

The author was not denigrating "brilliant" men; instead he was explaining a type of "brilliant" person that focuses their energy on coming up with brilliant ideas, but will not stay focused long enough to see it through to finish. Imagine if you are reliant on a co-founder who wants to be pivot every 6 months simply because all of the challenges of the first brilliant idea are solved, and all that remains is the hard work and execution?

The outcome of that scenario would likely be the outcome he experienced in his first business venture with his college friend, "[Carroll] is a bad employer for himself, but he could put a lot of ginger into somebody else's business. . ."

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