Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#111

Post by chris_mahan » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 9:57 PM UTC

akincisor wrote: post #101

brownbat wrote: post #91

"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.

I read 'slang' as buzzwords, and I think that statement is equally valid today.

I read slang also as linguistics crutches, like saying "cut to the chase" when you really meant to say "please speak plainly", which itself is a nice version of "just tell me the truth".

Linguistics are an interesting thing, especially with geeks. Often, their analytical minds concoct elaborate sentences, which, like algorithms, are abstractions over many little things. I prefer the plain talker, the man who has seen the cathedral of long sentences and has realized only the priests understand him.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#112

Post by Kluny » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

I love the fact that the author makes his points without ever putting down the men he talks about or sounding cynical. That make me take him more seriously than I otherwise would.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#113

Post by chris_mahan » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #21

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.

A lot of Silicon Valley, then.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#114

Post by darkmighty » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

solve wrote: post #78

billmalarky wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why you incentivize salesmen via commissions and quickly fire those that are obviously showing up just for the base paycheck.

Employees still optimize for pay / effort, NOT absolute pay. In that respect, commissions are still FAR from perfectly aligning incentives. You can't really be suggesting that commissions are the silver bullet for aligning incentives, as if that hasn't been tried for thousands of years already, with very mixed success :)

Well, make nonlinear commissions then! :P

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#115

Post by chris_mahan » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 10:02 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #45

spinlock wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really need to work at this. I definitely have always fit the "genius but doesn't finish things" description. I've been working at this hard for 8 years because it really has negatively affected my life. I'm making some progress but it's really slow and if I slack off even a little I tend to lose everything. It's hard.

The old expression "don't bite more than you can chew" epitomizes this. Don't start what you can't finish. It's in deciding what to start and what not to start that you'll make progress.

Read "The Effective Executive" by Peter Drucker, which addresses this in greater detail.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#116

Post by Kluny » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 10:03 PM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #91

"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.

Compare the comments on this site with the ones you see on reddit, where a sarcastic one-liner or a good meme reference can get thousands of upvotes. From my experience of actually writing comments on reddit that have gotten thousands of points - the less thought you put into them the better they'll do. The same is not true on HN where long and well thought out comments do better, and one-liners often get moderated. In my opinion, HN comments are much more valuable as a whole because of that.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#117

Post by 3minus1 » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 10:03 PM UTC

calinet6 wrote: post #100

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…

> belief in the innate quality of man

This is not some ancient belief. It's nature as opposed to nurture, and you see the same thing today when people talk about genetics.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#118

Post by Kluny » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 10:04 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #43

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…

His use of "brilliant" has little to do with IQ. It's a conflation of (a) creativity (which correlates, as he observes, with manic-depressive patterns and unreasonable expectations of others) and (b) superficial charisma (which correlates with narcissism and substance abuse). Those are two types of "flashiness" that he makes the mistake of conflating. I'm category (a): creative, prone to mood swings, basically reliab…

I don't think it's a mistake. That was correct usage of the word "brilliant" in 1920.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#119

Post by notastartup » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 10:05 PM UTC

While I was reading this almost 100 year old article, I felt nervous and anxious because the writer actually [uncanny pictureI fear that I have never been able to finish any of my projects, I get to about 80% and I am completely burnt out and now I know why after reading this article. It doesn't take brilliance or hacker thinking to complete a project. Quite the opposite, resilience, boring and being consistent is what it takes to finish the remaining 20%. This I see as something I need to work on. I always thought that my quick thinking would get me far and it does give me speed and agility in thinking but my mistake was thinking this mentality needs to be for the entire project.

It makes sense now, marketing, sales, good software practices, these all take discipline, endurance and the need to apply yourself every single day. It's definitely not a sprint and I've built myself to sprint long distances and burning out at the last remaining mile.

If the wisdom is a 100 years old and it still strikes a chord with our modern business environment, it must be important.

Great read, I read the whole thing.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#120

Post by qohen » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 10:08 PM UTC

benjohnson wrote: post #61

[deleted] wrote: post #53

[deleted]

The reference was to the 12 apostles of Jesus - they were low in standing and generally unschooled.

And, parenthetically, the "inland lake" would be the Sea of Galilee:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee#Ancient_and_Cla...

Much of the ministry of Jesus occurred on the shores of Lake Galilee. In those days, there was a continuous ribbon development of settlements and villages around the lake and plenty of trade and ferrying by boat. The Synoptic gospels of Mark (1:14–20), Matthew (4:18–22), and Luke (5:1–11) describe how Jesus recruited four of his apostles from the shores of Lake Galilee: the fishermen Simon and his brother Andrew and the brothers John and James. One of Jesus' famous teaching episodes, the Sermon on the Mount, is supposed to have been given on a hill overlooking the lake. Many of his miracles are also said to have occurred here including his walking on water, calming the storm, the disciples and the boatload of fish, and his feeding five thousand people (in Tabgha).