101–110 of 276 posts
"The continual use of slang expressions is an evidence of mental laziness, and I will not hire a man who depends upon slang to express his meaning. It is a substitute for exact thinking." I found this to be an unusual warning. Is "proper speech" really just a proxy for class in that time period? I'm now very curious about 1920s slang, especially its frequency of use in business settings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Um, he's using this whole episode as an example of what not to do, not what to do. He says right out that hiring that person that way was a mistake. The whole point of the article is to help people avoid the mistakes the author made. How many articles that get to HN's front page are basically the same thing?
Right, but I'm saying it's the wrong counterexample. This is "I got fucked up and crashed my Ford into a tree, so I'm never buying a Ford again."
If I repeatedly get fucked up and crash Fords over the course of my life while having much better luck with other cars, I might start looking for a causal relationship.
It appears that men labeled as genius were simply men of high charisma capable of convincing and inspiring others.
And since those qualities are so out of reach for techies they're looked down on.
It is much easier for me to do 80 hour workload in 40 hours than 20 hour workload in the same 40. Probably I am not the only one. If I have even ounce of non challenging time at work I am always searching for the next great feature/framework/whatever. And shipping slips. I finally managed to find my stride but a few projects ... lets say they were hard on everyone.
Beware of following ancient advice—or you may get ancient practices. "God Almighty, in fashioning his most useful men, often works slowly with quite common stuff. Now and then He turns out a quick job of superfine materials -- a genius who really delivers the goods. But most of His better grade line is ordinary in everything except the extra effort, and dogged determination, which have given it a finer texture and fi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? From all I have read about Newton, he would have been the employee from hell. A genius as a mathematician and physicist, yes; but a terrible employee.
He became Warden of the Royal Mint and became rather passionate about his new role - even to the extent of working as an undercover agent and personally leading the prosecution of "coiners" in court. [NB For a fictionalized, but hugely entertaining, account of the relevant time in history I can recommend Neal Stephenson's wonderful "Baroque Cycle" - Newton is a major character.]
Beware of following ancient advice—or you may get ancient practices. "God Almighty, in fashioning his most useful men, often works slowly with quite common stuff. Now and then He turns out a quick job of superfine materials -- a genius who really delivers the goods. But most of His better grade line is ordinary in everything except the extra effort, and dogged determination, which have given it a finer texture and fi…
With a sound internal structure this risk can be controlled and isolated within organizations to get good results -- e.g. spawning research labs, creating "distributed labs" like Google, etc.
Working at a startup helmed by a "brilliant" man as mentioned in the article, I wholeheartedly agree. So much hand waving. So little execution. One month, we were doing one thing that "had to be in the app". Another month, something else. Neither would get the actual attention that needed for them to be implemented properly, and nothing of value was produced. Society places too much importance on the buds of ideas. T…
Execution matters.