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Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

theguardian.com

41–50 of 117 posts

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#41

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, went to a normal magnet school like I did.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#43

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

We often forget that basically always brilliant successful kids have solid fundaments in form of their parents, affluent in the financial and legal domains. Even then they don't always succeed - remember that British kid who sold a recommendation engine to Yahoo?

The rags-to-riches in the industry doesn't exist, move along people.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#45
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the classic Gates/Jobs/Zuckerberg etc, is not actually what they did but that they had the sheer temerity to do it at that age without first building their confidence in industry for a few years. They are/were all known for being very arrogant people. Just because some of them become billionaires doesn't mean everyone should be like that. > How did they have the confidence to hold their own when confronted with suc…

> Have you ever met a 12 year old know-it-all? Same thing. Not at all. Words versus deeds. There are tons of inexperienced people who talk like they know everything; but of those, very few of them actually set out to do the things that "require experience." Say that there's a person who thinks they have an awesome idea for a game, but knows nothing about game development. It's the difference between them talking abou…

[deleted]

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#46
post #40

This article reminds me of a clip from an interview with Obama recently. https://youtu.be/N7ZHDoNhScY?t=716 He states that he expected people in charge would be more informed or smarter as he progressed up the chain from community organizer to world leader. But in his experience they did not. In his words, "It was all the same people." Another person that touches on this idea is Adam Corolla. His often states his obs…

I guess Obama never met people like Fabrice Bellard or John Carmack.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

We often forget that basically always brilliant successful kids have solid fundaments in form of their parents, affluent in the financial and legal domains. Even then they don't always succeed - remember that British kid who sold a recommendation engine to Yahoo? The rags-to-riches in the industry doesn't exist, move along people.

>remember that British kid who sold a recommendation engine to Yahoo?

Nick D'Aloisio? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio)

I was confused when you mentioned him, then I realized you think he didn't succeed because he's not a billionaire or didn't create the next Facebook.

Young millionaire studying at Oxford? I would trade places with that dude in a heartbeat. From everything I'm reading on his Wikipedia page, he seems to be doing quite well.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#48
post #40

This article reminds me of a clip from an interview with Obama recently. https://youtu.be/N7ZHDoNhScY?t=716 He states that he expected people in charge would be more informed or smarter as he progressed up the chain from community organizer to world leader. But in his experience they did not. In his words, "It was all the same people." Another person that touches on this idea is Adam Corolla. His often states his obs…

I guess Obama never met people like Fabrice Bellard or John Carmack.

You’re selecting for exemplary people in your example, while Obama and Corolla are talking about a wide group of people in an industry. Your comment does not hold water.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#49
post #40

This article reminds me of a clip from an interview with Obama recently. https://youtu.be/N7ZHDoNhScY?t=716 He states that he expected people in charge would be more informed or smarter as he progressed up the chain from community organizer to world leader. But in his experience they did not. In his words, "It was all the same people." Another person that touches on this idea is Adam Corolla. His often states his obs…

I guess Obama never met people like Fabrice Bellard or John Carmack.

I bet John Carmack is just winging it in a lot of aspects of his life, too.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#50

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

> the classic Gates/Jobs/Zuckerberg etc, is not actually what they did but that they had the sheer temerity to do it at that age without first building their confidence in industry for a few years. They are/were all known for being very arrogant people. Just because some of them become billionaires doesn't mean everyone should be like that. > How did they have the confidence to hold their own when confronted with suc…

>Linus didn't win the debate vs Tanenbaum. He simply happened to be the right guy at the right place at the right time.

He just kept building, even though he was aware that there was a "competitor" in the space. I mean, look at his very first Usenet post announcing Linux ("just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu") - sometimes "just keep building" is all it takes, and the established leaders have far less of an advantage than we think they do.

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