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I know a fair number of people who've done important new things, and this seems right on the mark: "There is also an introversion in the innovator that keeps h

I know a fair number of people who've done important new things, and this seems right on the mark: "There is also an introversion in the innovator that keeps him from team sports and social events. He dislikes authority, or at least being told what to do. He is not a leader in high school or college, nor is he likely to be pledged by social clubs. From an early age he is a dreamer, not a doer. His attention wanders easily. He likes to probe, to collect, to tinker. He is prone to fantasize. He is not inclined to focus. He will not be voted by his classmates most likely to succeed." An interesting conflict arises when these people become startup founders. If their companies succeed, they're forced to become leaders, whether they want to or not. But they rarely learn to relish it. And yet these founders are usually the best leaders for their companies, if they can make themselves do it. It's one of the only examples I know where the people who are best at something don't like doing it much.

yters 9y ago
"But the chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule. It is from fear of this, as it appears to me, that the better sort hold office when they do, and then they go to it not in the expectation of enjoyment nor as to a good thing, but as to a necessary evil and because they are unable to turn it over to better men than themselves." - Plato, Republic, Book 1, section 347c
- hyperpallium 9y ago
  “The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem” - Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
  - musage 9y ago
    > I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help. -- Hannah Arendt
  - __s 9y ago
    Replacing electing a president with picking a president by lottery where every citizen is elligible (if they decline, move to the next person on the list) is still democracy: over time the opinions of the presidents in aggregate will be representational of how widespread those opinions are in the population
    - yters 9y ago
      That's the plot of GK Chesterton's Napoleon of Notting Hill. Also how some ancient Greek city states used to elect their leaders.
      - nitrogen 9y ago
        Sortiton is the term for those wondering: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
  - petra 9y ago
    In some Hunter gatherer societies, leaders weren't people who wanted that job,but people who were selected by the community to do it.
nur0n 9y ago
I think the problem is one of breadth v depth. If you specialize too much, then its probable that you will fail to reuse knowledge from different fields. If you focus on breadth too much, then you will not have enough deep knowledge to build something of high quality. I would characterize people who are described by your quote as people who prefer breadth of knowledge over depth. This is a good quality to have in order to avoid tunnel vision. The downside (as you mentioned) is that it takes more willpower to maintain prolonged focus on an objective. I believe that I tend to fall in this category of people and its annoying when society demands to see immediate, obvious results. Small, incremental progress is less risky but it seems(to me) that the rewards are also minimized. Its difficult to judge whether the 'dreaming' one is doing will realize as concrete, positive changes.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
dsacco 9y ago
The problem with that paragraph is it’s vague and non-commital, like a horoscope. We can fill in the blanks to make that description fit people who we already think are intelligent, innovative, etc. As a template, it lacks precision because it’s hard to falsify, like when you survey people to see if they’re “more creative or more logical.” As a counterpoint, I also happen to know people who have done “important new things” and they mostly don’t match that description. One of the most brilliant people I’ve known seemed almost born to lead. He didn’t particularly excel at sports, but he enjoyed playing and watching them, and was on teams in high school and college. I wouldn’t describe him as a “dreamer” or as unfocused; in all things he seemed relentlessly focused. His opinion on authority is probably lukewarm, but not negative. I think that paragraph presents a false dichotomy - even of the people I’ve known who more closely match some of the other qualities, I wouldn’t describe any of them as lacking in focus nor action. It’s easy to come up with examples of famous innovators matching either description, and it’s probably easy to slip into disagreement about things like, “well what does not inclined to focus mean?” In short, it’s underspecified, and people can read into it what appeals to them.
- mojuba 9y ago
  > I also happen to know people who have done “important new things” and they mostly don’t match that description I'm curious what exactly that person is doing. You seem to be describing a leader but not necessarily tech/science innovator. Wilson is talking about people who invent and build innovative stuff. They can become leaders only as long as they are forced to, in order to achieve their goals (e.g. become a founder and lead a company). Lack of focus applies to things that are not interesting to these people, but then they become hyper-focused and even obsessed about their own ideas.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    > I'm curious what exactly that person is doing. You seem to be describing a leader but not necessarily tech/science innovator. He’s a research scientist at a tech company. He resolved a central open problem in his field while in academia, then entered the industry to work on applied research. > Lack of focus applies to things that are not interesting to these people, but then they become hyper-focused and even obsessed about their own ideas. Maybe. But you saying this is part of my original point: is that actually what the quote means? What you’re saying sounds like the stereotypical conception of a genius, not necessarily the reality of high performing innovators. I feel like it’s hard for me focus on things that aren’t interesting to me, and I dive into things that interest me. But that also describes...essentially everyone I know, if I’m reasonably objective about it. If we can keep exchanging anecdata that supports or challenges that description, it’s no longer a description of the world, but rather just a description of particular people (and one without predictive impact). A description isn’t impactful if you have to keep clarifying its interpretation in order to make it work. Reasonable people can disagree about whether it’s fair to say your interpretation is what the quote is actually getting at, and in any case we could find obvious counterexamples for it.
drharby 9y ago
Someone who is hungry to realize her dream will self reflect and make appropriate changes in habit to build the dream. Someone who dreams and fails to map reality to said dreams will not. At least my life experience. Just hard to do the former. Took a military career to be able to do the former as it takes so much discipline. Its hard

yters 9y ago

"But the chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule. It is from fear of this, as it appears to me, that the better sort hold office when they do, and then they go to it not in the expectation of enjoyment nor as to a good thing, but as to a necessary evil and because they are unable to turn it over to better men than themselves." - Plato, Republic, Book 1, section 347c

hyperpallium 9y ago
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem” - Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
- musage 9y ago
  > I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help. -- Hannah Arendt
- __s 9y ago
  Replacing electing a president with picking a president by lottery where every citizen is elligible (if they decline, move to the next person on the list) is still democracy: over time the opinions of the presidents in aggregate will be representational of how widespread those opinions are in the population
  - yters 9y ago
    That's the plot of GK Chesterton's Napoleon of Notting Hill. Also how some ancient Greek city states used to elect their leaders.
    - nitrogen 9y ago
      Sortiton is the term for those wondering: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
- petra 9y ago
  In some Hunter gatherer societies, leaders weren't people who wanted that job,but people who were selected by the community to do it.

nur0n 9y ago

I think the problem is one of breadth v depth. If you specialize too much, then its probable that you will fail to reuse knowledge from different fields. If you focus on breadth too much, then you will not have enough deep knowledge to build something of high quality. I would characterize people who are described by your quote as people who prefer breadth of knowledge over depth. This is a good quality to have in order to avoid tunnel vision. The downside (as you mentioned) is that it takes more willpower to maintain prolonged focus on an objective. I believe that I tend to fall in this category of people and its annoying when society demands to see immediate, obvious results. Small, incremental progress is less risky but it seems(to me) that the rewards are also minimized. Its difficult to judge whether the 'dreaming' one is doing will realize as concrete, positive changes.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

dsacco 9y ago

The problem with that paragraph is it’s vague and non-commital, like a horoscope. We can fill in the blanks to make that description fit people who we already think are intelligent, innovative, etc. As a template, it lacks precision because it’s hard to falsify, like when you survey people to see if they’re “more creative or more logical.” As a counterpoint, I also happen to know people who have done “important new things” and they mostly don’t match that description. One of the most brilliant people I’ve known seemed almost born to lead. He didn’t particularly excel at sports, but he enjoyed playing and watching them, and was on teams in high school and college. I wouldn’t describe him as a “dreamer” or as unfocused; in all things he seemed relentlessly focused. His opinion on authority is probably lukewarm, but not negative. I think that paragraph presents a false dichotomy - even of the people I’ve known who more closely match some of the other qualities, I wouldn’t describe any of them as lacking in focus nor action. It’s easy to come up with examples of famous innovators matching either description, and it’s probably easy to slip into disagreement about things like, “well what does not inclined to focus mean?” In short, it’s underspecified, and people can read into it what appeals to them.

mojuba 9y ago
> I also happen to know people who have done “important new things” and they mostly don’t match that description I'm curious what exactly that person is doing. You seem to be describing a leader but not necessarily tech/science innovator. Wilson is talking about people who invent and build innovative stuff. They can become leaders only as long as they are forced to, in order to achieve their goals (e.g. become a founder and lead a company). Lack of focus applies to things that are not interesting to these people, but then they become hyper-focused and even obsessed about their own ideas.
- dsacco 9y ago
  > I'm curious what exactly that person is doing. You seem to be describing a leader but not necessarily tech/science innovator. He’s a research scientist at a tech company. He resolved a central open problem in his field while in academia, then entered the industry to work on applied research. > Lack of focus applies to things that are not interesting to these people, but then they become hyper-focused and even obsessed about their own ideas. Maybe. But you saying this is part of my original point: is that actually what the quote means? What you’re saying sounds like the stereotypical conception of a genius, not necessarily the reality of high performing innovators. I feel like it’s hard for me focus on things that aren’t interesting to me, and I dive into things that interest me. But that also describes...essentially everyone I know, if I’m reasonably objective about it. If we can keep exchanging anecdata that supports or challenges that description, it’s no longer a description of the world, but rather just a description of particular people (and one without predictive impact). A description isn’t impactful if you have to keep clarifying its interpretation in order to make it work. Reasonable people can disagree about whether it’s fair to say your interpretation is what the quote is actually getting at, and in any case we could find obvious counterexamples for it.

drharby 9y ago

Someone who is hungry to realize her dream will self reflect and make appropriate changes in habit to build the dream. Someone who dreams and fails to map reality to said dreams will not. At least my life experience. Just hard to do the former. Took a military career to be able to do the former as it takes so much discipline. Its hard