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Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

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Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#81

Post by Retric »

abalashov wrote: post #51
selmnoo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can't buy you love Not to be a smartass here, but that's probably false. Money buys you social recognition, something that is an important part of your mate valuation. Rich folks will generally have a better time finding 'love' than the poor. The richer you are, the better your chances, more or less. Money really is very important in the modern day. I wish it weren't this way -- I don't want to be doing selfish…

Agreed. However, in a day and age where (in the Western world, anyway) women no longer need men overtly for financial support, social recognition as mating currency is just that--social recognition. It can be, and very often is, orthogonal to wealth. Witness all the young women in love with crappy DJs, self-styled pseudo-unemployed hipsters, no-name sidewalk band heroes, stoners, and a variety of Bohemians that a con…

There are far more women than well off men.

The real issue for most men is time. A 20 something working 60 hour weeks spends far less time 'playing the game' than a DJ etc. Also, relationships take time if your doing a start-up 'on the side' it's going to play hell with most relationships.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#82

Post by rsp1984 »

conroe64 wrote: post #20

IMHO, to continually put "success" above everything else in your life and slave away towards that goal as the ultimate redemption in everything is a waste of your time and therefore your life. It can be such as easy sell, especially to people with low self-esteem... if only you were rich, had a great body, had success with the opposite sex, etc., etc. And always underlying it, but never spoken of, is the vain and sel…

I imagine to those of us are lucky enough to reach adulthood without any big hardship in life such a lifestyle can be very appealing, but unfortunately I reckon it's not how it typically plays out.

This entire viewpoint is based on the false premise that we are born and grow up unaffected by any financial, physical or psychological stress, living in a nice cushioned bubble, free to live our lives and to shape our future as we please. Unfortunately it doesn't always work out like that.

For everybody else (people who have been through difficult times in their lives, e.g. poverty, having suffered great losses, bullied in school, bad family etc..) success, as in being wealthy, influencial and attractive, is pretty much the only way to deal with life. Let's not forget that.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#83

Post by ryanjshaw »

djokkataja wrote: post #48
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being poor completely sucks. Watching your cat die from cancer that you can't afford to treat sucks. The point of getting rich is so that your life doesn't suck. Not to compare yourself to others. Getting rich is necessarily hard, otherwise everyone would be on the road to becoming rich. People are unlikely to get rich by doing work which satisfies. But if they make it, then at least life won't suck anymore.

>The point of getting rich is so that your life doesn't suck. >Getting rich is necessarily hard, otherwise everyone would be on the road to becoming rich. The logic doesn't follow here: having enough wealth to have a non-sucky life must be difficult enough to remain out of the reach of the majority of humanity? Why? Let's take this to an extreme: all the wealthy people decide to employ robots for all of their needs t…

I believe you've misunderstood parent's point.

He's not discussing a theoretical world with robots (???); he's discussing the one we live in, where wealth inequality is a fact. Given the clear benefits of wealth, it's obvious that getting rich is not easy otherwise we'd expect to see less inequality.

Before anybody tries to tell me that getting rich might not be important to most people, think very carefully about whether you're qualified to comment. If you aren't, or haven't been, below the poverity line that a vast proportion of the world's population live below, it's easy to underestimate what it's like. And yes even moderately successful people with strong incomes may have legitimate desires for greater wealth.

I spent 20% of my PRE-TAX income on healthcare last year and that's not going to change; I'm better off than being completely poor but that's not going to console me when I consider that I spend most of my week working to pay those bills with little time to enjoy life; i.e. I have a significantly higher baseline for income than most people to extract the same basic quality of life they have, and in my particular case I have to jump to a completely different level to earn that income - I have to build a business.

I don't understand the obsession some people here have with trying to tell others how to live their lives. Everybody has different circumstances and experiences; we have absolute freedom in deciding, based on those circumstances and experiences, what's important to us.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#84

Post by denysonique »

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#85

Post by michaelochurch »

foobarian wrote: post #79
michaelochurch wrote: post #25

At first (before I RTFA) I was going to come here to disagree vehemently. There are severe founder-quality issues right now and a lot of that has to do with low-IQ people who failed out of banking or management consulting getting funded, while actually smart people with less social polish get fuck-all. 140+ IQ doesn't mean much, but I'd fund a 140+ over a well-connected douchebag any day of the year. The problem is t…

The logic in this comment doesn't really work for me. I like to code, and am thankful that my company enables me to do it most of the time instead of dealing with a bunch of non-coding issues. I really don't want to learn office politics, "play to win" (win at what? I already won), "demolish my enemies" (what makes them my enemies? If they weren't around I'd have to do more of that non-coding crap work) etc. Quoth Ta…

I like to code, and am thankful that my company enables me to do it most of the time instead of dealing with a bunch of non-coding issues.

I understand this, but I think that you'll eventually get bored if you can't get a sense of progress out of your work. This requires that you pick your tools and problems. If you're lucky enough to work in an open-allocation environment, and if that persists for 40 years, then that's great and you'll never be bored or frustrated.

However, most programmers want their work to be progressive: bigger challenges, more interesting problems, high-impact opportunities. This'll inevitably put you on the battlefield with status quo rent-seekers who hate you just for improving things. Even if you're not a threat to them in anyway, they'll hit you preemptively, just to prove that they can.

I really don't want to learn office politics

I understand. Who does? How many college kids say, "I want to get out there and be a private-sector politician"? Probably very few.

It's a shitty game. It shouldn't exist. But it does, and the only way we can hold it back is if good people are willing to join the fight, and able to win it.

what makes them my enemies? If they weren't around I'd have to do more of that non-coding crap work

It's not "programmer good, business bad". There are good businesspeople and bad, turncoat programmers. What makes the bad guys bad is not what they do, but the mentality. The bad guys are the ones who see us as overpaid cost centers and peasantry. Decent people managers and entrepreneurs are worth their weight in gold, but very rare: maybe 10% of the tribe.

A good manager knows that his job is to be a "sheep dog". His role is to protect the people doing the work, from assaults on all sides, so they can do the work. Whether it's an executive trying to squeeze employees or a low-level employee being a toxic jerk (i.e. making sexist remarks, insulting others' work) a good manager fights that. A bad manager thinks that his reports exist to serve him and that it doesn't go both ways.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#86

Post by mtdewcmu »

phlo wrote: post #68
mtdewcmu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point had to do with knives, not ladders. If you have a knife and you're well-trained in knife skills, and your adversaries are all armed only with ladders, you are easily going to win that fight. I think that's the point he was trying to make.

The point was to emphasize how ladders are clearly superior to knives, or even sticks. As has been demonstrated in literature[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrRFzwPE0d4&t=3m13s

Jackie Chan is the obvious and only exception to the rule. He could kick anyone's ass with a ladder.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#87

Post by mtdewcmu »

michaelochurch wrote: post #85
foobarian wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic in this comment doesn't really work for me. I like to code, and am thankful that my company enables me to do it most of the time instead of dealing with a bunch of non-coding issues. I really don't want to learn office politics, "play to win" (win at what? I already won), "demolish my enemies" (what makes them my enemies? If they weren't around I'd have to do more of that non-coding crap work) etc. Quoth Ta…

I like to code, and am thankful that my company enables me to do it most of the time instead of dealing with a bunch of non-coding issues. I understand this, but I think that you'll eventually get bored if you can't get a sense of progress out of your work. This requires that you pick your tools and problems. If you're lucky enough to work in an open-allocation environment, and if that persists for 40 years, then tha…

The most obnoxious boss I ever had was a fellow programmer, and the problem wasn't that he was a turncoat. He was just obnoxious. I think you could take the problem you're describing and generalize it to any manager-managee relationship, and it reduces to simple bad management. Some managers will be attentive and make positive contributions, others will be inattentive and destructive. The latter style is self-defeating, and that's going to be hard to get away with forever.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#88

Post by eli_gottlieb »

conroe64 wrote: post #20

IMHO, to continually put "success" above everything else in your life and slave away towards that goal as the ultimate redemption in everything is a waste of your time and therefore your life. It can be such as easy sell, especially to people with low self-esteem... if only you were rich, had a great body, had success with the opposite sex, etc., etc. And always underlying it, but never spoken of, is the vain and sel…

>The hero in the story is an Israeli soldier who decided to risk his life over a few dollars in his pocket. To do what, prove he was macho? He was really stupid in my book. And we're supposed to, according to the author, look up to this man? Train all our lives as a knife fighter, so we, too, can take dumb risks and be lucky enough to not get killed doing so?

Well yes, of course. Your ambition is the engine of the elite's profits.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#89

Post by eli_gottlieb »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #29
conroe64 wrote: post #20

IMHO, to continually put "success" above everything else in your life and slave away towards that goal as the ultimate redemption in everything is a waste of your time and therefore your life. It can be such as easy sell, especially to people with low self-esteem... if only you were rich, had a great body, had success with the opposite sex, etc., etc. And always underlying it, but never spoken of, is the vain and sel…

Being poor completely sucks. Watching your cat die from cancer that you can't afford to treat sucks. The point of getting rich is so that your life doesn't suck. Not to compare yourself to others. Getting rich is necessarily hard, otherwise everyone would be on the road to becoming rich. People are unlikely to get rich by doing work which satisfies. But if they make it, then at least life won't suck anymore.

>Getting rich is necessarily hard, otherwise everyone would be on the road to becoming rich. People are unlikely to get rich by doing work which satisfies. But if they make it, then at least life won't suck anymore.

The whole point of an economy is to make it easier and easier to become wealthier and wealthier.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#90

Post by [deleted] »

conroe64 wrote: post #20

IMHO, to continually put "success" above everything else in your life and slave away towards that goal as the ultimate redemption in everything is a waste of your time and therefore your life. It can be such as easy sell, especially to people with low self-esteem... if only you were rich, had a great body, had success with the opposite sex, etc., etc. And always underlying it, but never spoken of, is the vain and sel…

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