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I remember going to an Erlang conference where Basho was a sponsor. One of the engineering managers held a presentation on something new in Riak and had a small

I remember going to an Erlang conference where Basho was a sponsor. One of the engineering managers held a presentation on something new in Riak and had a small error in it. One of the other basho guys in the audience corrects him and his reaction to that was the following: "That's Ryan Zezeski, he's awesome and if he says that, you should listen to him". My immediate reaction was: "wow, I want to work for this guy" (funny sidenote: because this was in DC, I thought everyone wore suits, so I showed up with a jacket. I felt like an MBA and never so out of place as an engineer in my entire life). I have another one where I was working in a startup that was doing telco stuff. This is about 10 years ago, so I was a bit younger. I'm sitting there next to the founder, listening to my music with my huge Sennheiser headphone and the founder taps me on the shoulder. He says: "Reza, we need to talk". I look at him and say: "What do you want, you don't have a clue about this stuff anyway." He just says: "That's right, I don't, that's why I hired you". So I just shut up and listen. It's also not entirely true, he follows a lot tech, he just lacks the knowledge when it comes to the implementation. Over the years the handful of really good leaders I saw all had the same quality. They all knew when to get out of the way and making a decision when it counts. It's what I strive to do these days. Seems to me that the best way to build trust is to let a person that's a specialist in his field take the spotlight when needed.

ambicapter 8y ago
> I look at him and say: "What do you want, you don't have a clue about this stuff anyway." I know you specified this was 10 years ago, but I can't think of a single situation where this would not be a douchebag move.
- rjzzleep 8y ago
  It's great making assumptions when you know nothing about the dynamics between two people, their social interactions, their history and basically anything else isn't it? I mean, you could have just asked. But insulting random people you know nothing about is much less of a douchebag way to deal with it I guess.
  - cannonedhamster 8y ago
    I read it much the same way, as a rather insulting thing to say, especially since you didn't go into what was said afterwards and you didn't preface the kind of relationship you had. It's not on the reader to understand what you meant, it's on the writer to write what they mean in a way that the reader understands the intent.
  - meva 8y ago
    Your answer is needlessly rude yet again.

ambicapter 8y ago

> I look at him and say: "What do you want, you don't have a clue about this stuff anyway." I know you specified this was 10 years ago, but I can't think of a single situation where this would not be a douchebag move.

rjzzleep 8y ago
It's great making assumptions when you know nothing about the dynamics between two people, their social interactions, their history and basically anything else isn't it? I mean, you could have just asked. But insulting random people you know nothing about is much less of a douchebag way to deal with it I guess.
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  I read it much the same way, as a rather insulting thing to say, especially since you didn't go into what was said afterwards and you didn't preface the kind of relationship you had. It's not on the reader to understand what you meant, it's on the writer to write what they mean in a way that the reader understands the intent.
- meva 8y ago
  Your answer is needlessly rude yet again.