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So, what's her secret? Is it something you can learn, is it experience, x-ray vision you either have or have not? Are women better suited for this job? What c

So, what's her secret? Is it something you can learn, is it experience, x-ray vision you either have or have not? Are women better suited for this job? What clues are you looking for while talking to founders? Is there something like a 'perfect' character or does she make a list of positive and negative traits? Are some traits more important than others?

yason 11y ago
I would bet a lot that it's nothing really you could analyze in terms of rational thinking but that it's still something that everybody has. Everyone, including you, do get different feelings from different people. Maybe there's that uncle you're just not that comfortable with to begin with, or your neighbour who always lightens you up somehow. But the problem is that focusing on thoughts and modelling your impression by thinking masks these feelings off. Thus, most people don't realize how their feelings change when they move from place to place and from person to person. The feelings can be seen in your body language but in the worst case you're completely oblivious to them yourself. Typically you just grow a blurred sense of anxiety or ease, much like a moving average of what you've felt that day. Now imagine you do get a slight grasp of all that, and begin to practice it. Maybe you can find a way to "feel" different people, maybe you observe how your feeling changes when stepping into an elevator with different people each time. Maybe you find some other way to sift through people and try to get a feeling from each one. There are infinite number of ways to practices and they are all equally hard. Sensing can be really hard because, today, everyone is always going, talking, making noise, and acting busy. It's impossible to deal with a lot and try to get a feel of a person at the same time. I think something similar was described in the article: you need to be out of the focus, you have to have some space around you to make this connection with your feelings. However, for some reason, your body tends to like breathing. Focusing on breathing tends to tone down the active parts of brain and emphasize your sensibility to your feelings going through your body. Maybe that is the reason martial arts emphasize breathing a lot. So, it might be that you find yourself breathing slowly and steadily in the elevator, maybe gazing out to the wall during the ride, and just practice sensing what the feeling is each time, with different people. The more you practice, the better you get. Usually, as with practice, there are turning points where you just suddenly "get it", or at least you will get a glimpse of it if nothing else. Maybe at some point you begin to associate these feelings with an idea, or rather, an intuition. This is where you learn to put meaning in the feelings. A lot of times these feelings tend to be unexplainable. You don't know how, but your answer is "no". Or "yes". Or whatever you were seeking to know. In fact, the surefire sign that the feeling produces a genuine intuition in you is that you can't make yourself explain it. You're still practicing but now you need to practice trust. You get readings, some of which are noise from your mind and some are signals, from your body and based on genuine feelings, and you need to learn to trust your judgement on which one you heard. Becoming more sensible is not a game. You can't game it: what you need to do is surrender. Also note that it is absolutely not a one-way street. By changing how you perceive your surroundings and the people out there also changes you. You will not be the same person who is asking about this and who eventually gets the answer. It's also nothing mystical nor magical, it's just something humans can do but very rarely choose to do by a conscious choice. Foot note: I've been a very sensitive person since I was kid. So has my wife. It seems all so normal here now. Many a years back, it was truly comforting to realize that there are others like me. I've chosen to increase my sensitivity during the early adulthood by relying more on it. What you use will get bigger, I guess it's like what a muscle would do. It's also not a general trait or objective capability: it's very personal. What and how I feel the world is completely different from how Jessica Livingstone feels the world. Or my wife. Or anyone else. But the truths I feel myself are only applicable in my own life, so that is fine.
hebdo 11y ago
There is no special key, no special pattern that unlocks one's extraordinary performance in a given area. Some people happen to have the right combination of brains, experience, commitment, and luck. And they leave the world impressed. You could literally ask the same questions about Mozart or Einstein. Let me try that: what's their secret? Can you learn it? Is it experience, something you either have or have not? Are men better suited for the job? What clues are you looking for while analyzing a theory? Is there something like a 'perfect' symphony, or did he make a list of positive and negative tone patterns? Are some chords more important than others?
20years 11y ago
Talk less and learn to watch and listen. You will be amazed at how better your instincts become. I think her traits are what make her good at this. She doesn't like attention and is more of an introvert. These traits probably make her very good at listening and a great observer of people. Most introverts I know are very good at judging people because they don't want the attention on themselves.
cookiecaper 11y ago
>Are women better suited for this job? Yes, practically all of the core traits PG describes are typical feminine traits. This is a nice piece because it explains how critically important the feminine touch is, and how easy it is to ignore that because most females don't care much about their personal fame, they mostly care about helping people and being useful. While PG has described the utility these traits have in running a "family" of founders, they're also extremely valuable in running an actual family. PG has really written an ode to womanhood in general, and whilst reading it, I think most of us will relate as we identify similar things in our wives and mothers. This is not to detract from Jessica Livingston's specific ability to apply these to the world of VC, which undoubtedly takes a lot of skill and knowledge, but I think it's important that we recognize the value from these types of contributions is accessible and often regularly enjoyed by those of us who are lucky enough to have such stereotypically selfless women in our lives.
- wpietri 11y ago
  Ugh. I get that the gender binary is something that we all grew up with, so it can seem like some sort of immutable feature of the universe. But "typical feminine traits" can be learned by actual dudes. Guys, if you think that these traits are useful for running successful businesses, just go learn them. It is possible for men to listen just like Jessica. We can also be nurturing, supportive, sensitive, thoughtful, emotionally perceptive, and kind. These are actual skills that we can actually learn if we want. We don't have to push women to be stereotypes just to have successful businesses and families.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    Gender roles are an immutable feature of the universe. Yes, men can learn and become good at some of these things that women have a natural inclination toward, just as women can learn and become good at some of the things that men have a natural inclination toward, and there is some play here in terms of the quantity of each trait that a specific individual gets, but it's hard to fully substitute a native intuition. We need both genders -- neither can be discarded, and insisting that the two genders are so similar as to not have any unique properties or advantages is the same as discarding them.
velik_m 11y ago
There is no secret. People who do more observing tend to be more observant. Talk and type less and watch and listen more and in a decade or two you will be able to figure out other people's character pretty fast.
neilk 11y ago
I can't claim to have jl's "x-ray vision", but I think I've gotten a lot better at this. Possibly because I'm not naturally good at this, so I have to do it consciously. The way in for me was English literature. Since the modern novel, writing in English focuses on revealing character through what someone does or says. Why do they choose this word and not another? By their actions, what can you learn about what's going on in their head? Turns out that works pretty well in real life too. A trivial example: I had a supervisor who I would say had problems with role-reversing. While ostensibly the boss, this person really wanted other people to notice what a difficult time they were having. Again I figured this out just through word choice. Some people, in the boss role, express their vision as "we need to do this"; with this boss it was more like "nobody is supporting me, so you all need to step up". Instead of performing confidence, they performed their personal discomfort, which is a cry for others to show that they care. I think most people would realize that this is annoying, but look a little deeper, to see the need that's behind that. This is someone who habitually fears abandonment. (Maybe that's even why they took the boss role.) So, all it took was a tiny comment every now and then from me, to allay their fears, and our relationship dramatically shifted for the better. Now, this kind of personal attention can be just kindness. You can use it to give people around you the motivation they need to succeed. But in this case, the neediness was sort of a bottomless pit, so it made me seriously question ever working with this person again. Most people are broadcasting all kinds of things about themselves, almost painfully strongly. It's just that for the most part, nobody is picking up on it. Developers in particular usually don't want to pick up on it.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
Read Goleman's Emotional Intelligence and maybe "Intuition at Work" to get started on this. You have to learn it straight from experience. I wrote a detailed description here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10578474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10578474

yason 11y ago

I would bet a lot that it's nothing really you could analyze in terms of rational thinking but that it's still something that everybody has. Everyone, including you, do get different feelings from different people. Maybe there's that uncle you're just not that comfortable with to begin with, or your neighbour who always lightens you up somehow. But the problem is that focusing on thoughts and modelling your impression by thinking masks these feelings off. Thus, most people don't realize how their feelings change when they move from place to place and from person to person. The feelings can be seen in your body language but in the worst case you're completely oblivious to them yourself. Typically you just grow a blurred sense of anxiety or ease, much like a moving average of what you've felt that day. Now imagine you do get a slight grasp of all that, and begin to practice it. Maybe you can find a way to "feel" different people, maybe you observe how your feeling changes when stepping into an elevator with different people each time. Maybe you find some other way to sift through people and try to get a feeling from each one. There are infinite number of ways to practices and they are all equally hard. Sensing can be really hard because, today, everyone is always going, talking, making noise, and acting busy. It's impossible to deal with a lot and try to get a feel of a person at the same time. I think something similar was described in the article: you need to be out of the focus, you have to have some space around you to make this connection with your feelings. However, for some reason, your body tends to like breathing. Focusing on breathing tends to tone down the active parts of brain and emphasize your sensibility to your feelings going through your body. Maybe that is the reason martial arts emphasize breathing a lot. So, it might be that you find yourself breathing slowly and steadily in the elevator, maybe gazing out to the wall during the ride, and just practice sensing what the feeling is each time, with different people. The more you practice, the better you get. Usually, as with practice, there are turning points where you just suddenly "get it", or at least you will get a glimpse of it if nothing else. Maybe at some point you begin to associate these feelings with an idea, or rather, an intuition. This is where you learn to put meaning in the feelings. A lot of times these feelings tend to be unexplainable. You don't know how, but your answer is "no". Or "yes". Or whatever you were seeking to know. In fact, the surefire sign that the feeling produces a genuine intuition in you is that you can't make yourself explain it. You're still practicing but now you need to practice trust. You get readings, some of which are noise from your mind and some are signals, from your body and based on genuine feelings, and you need to learn to trust your judgement on which one you heard. Becoming more sensible is not a game. You can't game it: what you need to do is surrender. Also note that it is absolutely not a one-way street. By changing how you perceive your surroundings and the people out there also changes you. You will not be the same person who is asking about this and who eventually gets the answer. It's also nothing mystical nor magical, it's just something humans can do but very rarely choose to do by a conscious choice. Foot note: I've been a very sensitive person since I was kid. So has my wife. It seems all so normal here now. Many a years back, it was truly comforting to realize that there are others like me. I've chosen to increase my sensitivity during the early adulthood by relying more on it. What you use will get bigger, I guess it's like what a muscle would do. It's also not a general trait or objective capability: it's very personal. What and how I feel the world is completely different from how Jessica Livingstone feels the world. Or my wife. Or anyone else. But the truths I feel myself are only applicable in my own life, so that is fine.

hebdo 11y ago

There is no special key, no special pattern that unlocks one's extraordinary performance in a given area. Some people happen to have the right combination of brains, experience, commitment, and luck. And they leave the world impressed. You could literally ask the same questions about Mozart or Einstein. Let me try that: what's their secret? Can you learn it? Is it experience, something you either have or have not? Are men better suited for the job? What clues are you looking for while analyzing a theory? Is there something like a 'perfect' symphony, or did he make a list of positive and negative tone patterns? Are some chords more important than others?

20years 11y ago

Talk less and learn to watch and listen. You will be amazed at how better your instincts become. I think her traits are what make her good at this. She doesn't like attention and is more of an introvert. These traits probably make her very good at listening and a great observer of people. Most introverts I know are very good at judging people because they don't want the attention on themselves.

cookiecaper 11y ago

>Are women better suited for this job? Yes, practically all of the core traits PG describes are typical feminine traits. This is a nice piece because it explains how critically important the feminine touch is, and how easy it is to ignore that because most females don't care much about their personal fame, they mostly care about helping people and being useful. While PG has described the utility these traits have in running a "family" of founders, they're also extremely valuable in running an actual family. PG has really written an ode to womanhood in general, and whilst reading it, I think most of us will relate as we identify similar things in our wives and mothers. This is not to detract from Jessica Livingston's specific ability to apply these to the world of VC, which undoubtedly takes a lot of skill and knowledge, but I think it's important that we recognize the value from these types of contributions is accessible and often regularly enjoyed by those of us who are lucky enough to have such stereotypically selfless women in our lives.

wpietri 11y ago
Ugh. I get that the gender binary is something that we all grew up with, so it can seem like some sort of immutable feature of the universe. But "typical feminine traits" can be learned by actual dudes. Guys, if you think that these traits are useful for running successful businesses, just go learn them. It is possible for men to listen just like Jessica. We can also be nurturing, supportive, sensitive, thoughtful, emotionally perceptive, and kind. These are actual skills that we can actually learn if we want. We don't have to push women to be stereotypes just to have successful businesses and families.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  Gender roles are an immutable feature of the universe. Yes, men can learn and become good at some of these things that women have a natural inclination toward, just as women can learn and become good at some of the things that men have a natural inclination toward, and there is some play here in terms of the quantity of each trait that a specific individual gets, but it's hard to fully substitute a native intuition. We need both genders -- neither can be discarded, and insisting that the two genders are so similar as to not have any unique properties or advantages is the same as discarding them.

velik_m 11y ago

There is no secret. People who do more observing tend to be more observant. Talk and type less and watch and listen more and in a decade or two you will be able to figure out other people's character pretty fast.

neilk 11y ago

I can't claim to have jl's "x-ray vision", but I think I've gotten a lot better at this. Possibly because I'm not naturally good at this, so I have to do it consciously. The way in for me was English literature. Since the modern novel, writing in English focuses on revealing character through what someone does or says. Why do they choose this word and not another? By their actions, what can you learn about what's going on in their head? Turns out that works pretty well in real life too. A trivial example: I had a supervisor who I would say had problems with role-reversing. While ostensibly the boss, this person really wanted other people to notice what a difficult time they were having. Again I figured this out just through word choice. Some people, in the boss role, express their vision as "we need to do this"; with this boss it was more like "nobody is supporting me, so you all need to step up". Instead of performing confidence, they performed their personal discomfort, which is a cry for others to show that they care. I think most people would realize that this is annoying, but look a little deeper, to see the need that's behind that. This is someone who habitually fears abandonment. (Maybe that's even why they took the boss role.) So, all it took was a tiny comment every now and then from me, to allay their fears, and our relationship dramatically shifted for the better. Now, this kind of personal attention can be just kindness. You can use it to give people around you the motivation they need to succeed. But in this case, the neediness was sort of a bottomless pit, so it made me seriously question ever working with this person again. Most people are broadcasting all kinds of things about themselves, almost painfully strongly. It's just that for the most part, nobody is picking up on it. Developers in particular usually don't want to pick up on it.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

Read Goleman's Emotional Intelligence and maybe "Intuition at Work" to get started on this. You have to learn it straight from experience. I wrote a detailed description here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10578474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10578474