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Something rarely mentioned: Ballmer could've been a first-rate mathematician. He graduated magna cum laude with an AB in math, and beat Bill Gates on the Putnam
by loeber 11y ago
Something rarely mentioned: Ballmer could've been a first-rate mathematician. He graduated magna cum laude with an AB in math, and beat Bill Gates on the Putnam exam, finishing well within the top 100 contestants that year.
- vermontdevil 11y agoI also think he could be a winner on Dancing with the Stars contest. I mean he is a heck of a dancer.
- ska 11y agoFor what it's worth, the latter does not imply the former. But your broader point stands.
- humanrebar 11y agoYeah, that undermines the "non-genius" part of the premise.
- dbbolton 11y agoI think it already undermined itself by using Jobs as the example of a genius. Da Vinci and Goethe were geniuses. Jobs was charismatic, had good business sense, and understood his markets, like virtually all successful CEOs, but I think "genius" is quite a stretch.
- ekanes 11y agoTrue, but if one allows that genius is also a way to say "able to do something few others can" then Jobs would meet that definition, along with Elon Musk, etc.
- rodgerd 11y agoAt that point you've expanded your criteria to Hitler and Jesse Owens.
- matwood 11y agoHitler was a genius at politics and charisma. No one raises to power like without some sort of gift. He was also crazy and evil, but no one said all genius is used for good causes.
- ekanes 11y agoHitler was an awful human being. But he was a genius orator. Jesse Owens was a physical genius, though we'd perhaps more easily say that someone performing a more complex skill was a genius, such as Steve Nash etc. In any case, I think it's interesting and useful to think there are many kinds of genius.
- emerongi 11y agoI'd like to see you lead a whole nation to believe your batshit crazy ideas. It takes a little bit of genius to do that.
- rfrank 11y agoand people who speed-solve rubik's cubes.
- dbbolton 11y agoYour definition doesn't really fit in the context of the article though, since it applies equally to Ballmer. The author was clearly trying to foil Ballmer (in the literary sense) by painting Jobs as a much more classical type of genius than what you described.
- aresant 11y agoAlong that same thread, Ballmer was also in the middle of a Stanford MBA and he was heavily recruited by Gates himself. (1) Guy didn't exactly fall into MSFT by accident, and in fact MSFT was no where near an incumbent, their revenue mark was sub $8m while Apple was literally going public a few months after Ballmer wound up joining MSFT. (2) (1) https://books.google.com/books?id=klV_BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=bill+gates+recruited+steve+ballmer&source=bl&ots=ulzd8SWv4F&sig=lfznIf-TYJV1r9uYH2qYTxxxE8Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMtvH1yMDJAhUDtIMKHVw4AZcQ6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=bill%20gates%20recruited%20steve%20ballmer&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=klV_BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=P... (2) http://www.thocp.net/companies/microsoft/microsoft_company.htm http://www.thocp.net/companies/microsoft/microsoft_company.h...
- jernfrost 11y agoThis is something that puzzles me. I've met many people like him who I know objectively speak are highly intelligent. But still on many levels they just come across as really stupid. Like they believe in completely wacky ideas or conspiracy theories or make obviously faulty reasoning. I really have trouble understanding why people can be so smart and stupid and the same time.
- sotojuan 11y agoI see this a lot. You could argue RMS fits this category. I don't think he's stupid, but somewhat strange for someone who could've been a first rate Physics or Computer Science researcher. A few weeks ago someone commented how some academic was disappointed that Gates had become an entrepreneur, calling it a "waste". It is interesting to think about what him, Ballmer, or Stallman would've done in academia.
- enraged_camel 11y ago>>It is interesting to think about what [Gates], Ballmer, or Stallman would've done in academia. Considering the current state of academia and the many articles regularly posted here, they probably would have burned out and left. That would have been the real waste in my opinion.
- josephcooney 11y agoLet's not even start on ESR.