4 ms·

I think people are reacting not to the (nonexistent) suggestion that MegaCorp programmers intrinsically suck, but rather to the implicit suggestion that they su

by mhartl 19y ago

I think people are reacting not to the (nonexistent) suggestion that MegaCorp programmers intrinsically suck, but rather to the implicit suggestion that they suck for not starting startups. To continue with the lion analogy, suppose that lions in the zoo were there by choice rather than by force. Then, when seeing how pathetic zoo lions are compared to wild lions, we might conclude that they somehow lack the courage to live their wild lives of destiny. The negative spin is that MegaCorp hackers are cowardly lions. This predictably provokes a defensive response. The positive spin? The cage doors are open.

DocSavage 19y ago
I found the opening metaphor distasteful because it suggests MegaCorp programmers currently suck, even if it's because of their environment. It sounded like PG can, at a glance, see programmers who seem "smart enough" but lack fundamental qualities that YC founders possess. As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example. The summary could be slightly modified and be truer to the essay: "Oh... you aren't working for yourself? You currently suck." [Disclaimer: I currently work for myself, and still suck.]
- pg 19y ago
  As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142465 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142465
  - jaydub 19y ago
    I would just like to say I feel I can relate to what pg is referring to. Last summer I worked as an intern for a fairly well respected and very large company. I must say that I feel the experience was rewarding and that I learned quite a bit. But I did feel a little bit like the caged animal in zoo that Paul described. One small example: You couldn't just push your work from dev(elopment) to prod(uction) - regardless of the thoroughness of testing, we had to go through the company's bureaucratic change management system which, while I understand its purpose theoretically, in fact only wasted time. Perhaps its just that I'm still a bit young and would like the ability to roam more freely. Getting to the other item pg mentioned, the team building excursions, I experienced that last summer in the form of a scavenger hunt. Granted this company is well respected, and that many of the students came from top colleges, I got the feeling that somehow people felt "accomplished" through their sheer acceptance to the internship program. One fellow intern commented to me as we were passing random people on the street. "We work for X. We're better than you." It sounds pretty ridiculous but he was simply voicing the same sentiment that many of the interns passively expressed through body language. There was this atmosphere of complacency (particularly outside the office) that bothered me. I think this took away from the drive to succeed. The same drive that got many of these smart students to this point.
    - m0nty 19y ago
      I was struck by this comment: "We work for X. We're better than you." Forget lions and zoos; that's the real difference between people who make good employees and those who don't. I know people I was at school with who wanted to work (for example) for IBM (because their dad did), achieved their ambition and are still there over 20 years later. I've had literally a dozen jobs in the same time. Whenever I've worked for companies like IBM or KPMG, etc, I got bored pretty damned fast, and soon left for more interesting work. But if you feel validated by your employer's credentials, you're probably never going to move on, and you'll put up with masses of crap in the meantime. We're all wired up different.
cdr 19y ago
"Oh... you haven't founded a company? You suck." is exactly the thesis of the essay, not "the opposite". The implicit suggestion that because they haven't started a startup they suck is certainly what people are reacting to, in large or small part. Sure, it's just a narcissism piece + YC ad, but come on.
- pg 19y ago
  "Oh... you haven't founded a company? You suck." is exactly the thesis of the essay, not "the opposite". Can you point out where I say this?
  - cdr 19y ago
    Can you point out where you don't? That is the entire gist of the piece the way most people read it, which I haven't seen you disagree with - people doing startups are lesser than people not doing startups. Or in the clarification, people not doing startups are voluntarily lesser. The analogy to caged animals was the most egregious, as the reactions show, but that was probably deliberately chosen for impact. "But something seemed wrong about these. There was something missing." "Founders arriving at Y Combinator often have the downtrodden air of refugees. Three months later they're transformed: they have so much more confidence that they seem as if they've grown several inches taller."
    - pg 19y ago
      Saying that people seem like refugees is saying that they suck? This is starting to feel like arguing with a reddit troll...
      - cdr 19y ago
        Ouch. I guess I should say this is starting to feel like arguing with Paul Grahm? So is everyone that got that impression from the essay a Reddit troll? If that wasn't what you wanted to communicate, was it the fault of all those people that read it for getting that impression?
pg 19y ago
The negative spin is that MegaCorp hackers are cowardly lions. There are all kinds of reasons people might work at a big company besides cowardice. They might need the health insurance, or to pay off their student loans. They might want to focus on other things besides work. Sigh. I wish people would stick to arguing about what I actually said in the essay, instead of what I "implied." If I wanted to imply something, I'd say it.
- cperciva 19y ago
  Sigh. I wish people would stick to arguing about what I actually said in the essay, instead of what I "implied." If I wanted to imply something, I'd say it. If you want people to read what you say literally instead of drawing inferences, don't use metaphors. Seeing those guys on their scavenger hunt was like seeing lions in a zoo after spending several years watching them in the wild. Do you mean that these scavenger hunters were pacing around and growling? Of course not -- you expect us, as readers who understand the nuances of English, to understand that this is a metaphor; to think about the differences between caged and uncaged lions; and to project those differences onto humans. Guess what? Metaphors are imprecise. Different people have different notions concerning how caged and uncaged lions differ. Different people will project these properties onto humans in different ways. I agree entirely with what you're saying in the essay, but I think it might have been far more effective if one of your proof-readers had said "you know, this is liable to be misinterpreted, maybe you can reword it?"
  - strey 19y ago
    The metaphor has nothing to do with what people say the essay implies.
    - deleted 19y ago
      [deleted]
  - asdflkj 19y ago
    Your criticism of PG's metaphor applies to all metaphors. P.S.: The role of metaphor isn't to build an argument. It's to make it more vivid and easier to understand. (Bad writers use metaphors to try to build arguments, but PG didn't in this essay.) So even if the lion metaphor was a bad one (according to whatever criteria), that doesn't justify misinterpretation of the actual argument.

by mhartl 19y ago

DocSavage 19y ago

I found the opening metaphor distasteful because it suggests MegaCorp programmers currently suck, even if it's because of their environment. It sounded like PG can, at a glance, see programmers who seem "smart enough" but lack fundamental qualities that YC founders possess. As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example. The summary could be slightly modified and be truer to the essay: "Oh... you aren't working for yourself? You currently suck." [Disclaimer: I currently work for myself, and still suck.]

pg 19y ago
As nuanced as human beings can be, as varied in skill and manner as they are over time, PG fairly quickly saw the "startling" differences and attributed it to the employee environment instead of their being hung-over, for example. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142465 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142465
- jaydub 19y ago
  I would just like to say I feel I can relate to what pg is referring to. Last summer I worked as an intern for a fairly well respected and very large company. I must say that I feel the experience was rewarding and that I learned quite a bit. But I did feel a little bit like the caged animal in zoo that Paul described. One small example: You couldn't just push your work from dev(elopment) to prod(uction) - regardless of the thoroughness of testing, we had to go through the company's bureaucratic change management system which, while I understand its purpose theoretically, in fact only wasted time. Perhaps its just that I'm still a bit young and would like the ability to roam more freely. Getting to the other item pg mentioned, the team building excursions, I experienced that last summer in the form of a scavenger hunt. Granted this company is well respected, and that many of the students came from top colleges, I got the feeling that somehow people felt "accomplished" through their sheer acceptance to the internship program. One fellow intern commented to me as we were passing random people on the street. "We work for X. We're better than you." It sounds pretty ridiculous but he was simply voicing the same sentiment that many of the interns passively expressed through body language. There was this atmosphere of complacency (particularly outside the office) that bothered me. I think this took away from the drive to succeed. The same drive that got many of these smart students to this point.
  - m0nty 19y ago
    I was struck by this comment: "We work for X. We're better than you." Forget lions and zoos; that's the real difference between people who make good employees and those who don't. I know people I was at school with who wanted to work (for example) for IBM (because their dad did), achieved their ambition and are still there over 20 years later. I've had literally a dozen jobs in the same time. Whenever I've worked for companies like IBM or KPMG, etc, I got bored pretty damned fast, and soon left for more interesting work. But if you feel validated by your employer's credentials, you're probably never going to move on, and you'll put up with masses of crap in the meantime. We're all wired up different.

cdr 19y ago

"Oh... you haven't founded a company? You suck." is exactly the thesis of the essay, not "the opposite". The implicit suggestion that because they haven't started a startup they suck is certainly what people are reacting to, in large or small part. Sure, it's just a narcissism piece + YC ad, but come on.

pg 19y ago
"Oh... you haven't founded a company? You suck." is exactly the thesis of the essay, not "the opposite". Can you point out where I say this?
- cdr 19y ago
  Can you point out where you don't? That is the entire gist of the piece the way most people read it, which I haven't seen you disagree with - people doing startups are lesser than people not doing startups. Or in the clarification, people not doing startups are voluntarily lesser. The analogy to caged animals was the most egregious, as the reactions show, but that was probably deliberately chosen for impact. "But something seemed wrong about these. There was something missing." "Founders arriving at Y Combinator often have the downtrodden air of refugees. Three months later they're transformed: they have so much more confidence that they seem as if they've grown several inches taller."
  - pg 19y ago
    Saying that people seem like refugees is saying that they suck? This is starting to feel like arguing with a reddit troll...
    - cdr 19y ago
      Ouch. I guess I should say this is starting to feel like arguing with Paul Grahm? So is everyone that got that impression from the essay a Reddit troll? If that wasn't what you wanted to communicate, was it the fault of all those people that read it for getting that impression?

pg 19y ago

The negative spin is that MegaCorp hackers are cowardly lions. There are all kinds of reasons people might work at a big company besides cowardice. They might need the health insurance, or to pay off their student loans. They might want to focus on other things besides work. Sigh. I wish people would stick to arguing about what I actually said in the essay, instead of what I "implied." If I wanted to imply something, I'd say it.

cperciva 19y ago
Sigh. I wish people would stick to arguing about what I actually said in the essay, instead of what I "implied." If I wanted to imply something, I'd say it. If you want people to read what you say literally instead of drawing inferences, don't use metaphors. Seeing those guys on their scavenger hunt was like seeing lions in a zoo after spending several years watching them in the wild. Do you mean that these scavenger hunters were pacing around and growling? Of course not -- you expect us, as readers who understand the nuances of English, to understand that this is a metaphor; to think about the differences between caged and uncaged lions; and to project those differences onto humans. Guess what? Metaphors are imprecise. Different people have different notions concerning how caged and uncaged lions differ. Different people will project these properties onto humans in different ways. I agree entirely with what you're saying in the essay, but I think it might have been far more effective if one of your proof-readers had said "you know, this is liable to be misinterpreted, maybe you can reword it?"
- strey 19y ago
  The metaphor has nothing to do with what people say the essay implies.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]
- asdflkj 19y ago
  Your criticism of PG's metaphor applies to all metaphors. P.S.: The role of metaphor isn't to build an argument. It's to make it more vivid and easier to understand. (Bad writers use metaphors to try to build arguments, but PG didn't in this essay.) So even if the lion metaphor was a bad one (according to whatever criteria), that doesn't justify misinterpretation of the actual argument.