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I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convicti

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any kind of profession, would be super smart and really know their game inside out. When I started my career I assumed frankly that my opinions were wrong, because of this. In my first job there were a lot of aspects that were almost the parody of how not to do things, yet even though I sensed this intuitively I convinced myself probably for the first year that I must be wrong and this must just be the way things are done in industry. That I would eventually figure out that this was the right way to do things. It's quite funny to look back on that in retrospect. What I find most impressive about tales of young company builders and leaders, the classic Gates/Jobs/Zuckerberg etc, is not actually what they did but that they had the sheer temerity to do it at that age without first building their confidence in industry for a few years. How did they know that they had the ability to build companies such as theirs -- surely were it possible one of the adults with 10-20 years industry experience would have figured it out already? How did they have the confidence to hold their own when confronted with such adults (many of whom I'm sure challenged them and competed with them for influence) as their companies grew? Truly awe inspiring.

yelloweyes 8y ago
> the classic Gates/Jobs/Zuckerberg etc, is not actually what they did but that they had the sheer temerity to do it at that age without first building their confidence in industry for a few years. They are/were all known for being very arrogant people. Just because some of them become billionaires doesn't mean everyone should be like that. > How did they have the confidence to hold their own when confronted with such adults Have you ever met a 12 year old know-it-all? Same thing. Linus didn't win the debate vs Tanenbaum. He simply happened to be the right guy at the right place at the right time.
- lostgame 8y ago
  I think this is really a huge part of it. Right place, right time. There are plenty of brilliant people with ideas actually executed very well that just go nowhere for whatever reason or other. Also right team, right people, I mean, right circumstances in general. In those kinds of right circumstances, the dumb move would be not to capitalize on it.
- derefr 8y ago
  > Have you ever met a 12 year old know-it-all? Same thing. Not at all. Words versus deeds. There are tons of inexperienced people who talk like they know everything; but of those, very few of them actually set out to do the things that "require experience." Say that there's a person who thinks they have an awesome idea for a game, but knows nothing about game development. It's the difference between them talking about this amazing game they want to make "one day", or maybe them posting on Upwork saying "I have an awesome idea for a game, I just need someone to build it"; and them sitting down and trying to actually build their idea themselves right now. It's also a question of how they confront obstacles. Most people without this trait of inexhaustible self-confidence, when they realize they don't have the skills to do something, will stop trying to do it, or will shelve the project and set out to first learn those skills. (And maybe never get back to their original dream/passion, instead just using the acquired skills in more mundane ways. All of you here who got into programming because you wanted to be a game developer know what I mean.) A person with this mindset, meanwhile, will create the best version of the thing they can right now with their limited skillset, and then keep iterating on it, improving their skills in the process of creating the thing. For an example, there are quite a number of webcomic artists working today, who, when they started, didn't know a thing about drawing (or much of anything, being teenagers), and it shows in their first comics. But they didn't care that they didn't know how to do it well; as long as they could do it at all, they just did it, and kept doing it, drawing and publishing a strip every day. And over the years, doing so has taught them how to draw—such that now, they're great at what they do.
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B0btheBuilder 8y ago
Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When you come from privilege, it's much easier to have confidence that things will work out.
- walrus01 8y ago
  Gates also went to one of the most expensive, rich kids' private schools in the Seattle area: https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-private-high-school-lakeside-seattle-2017-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-private-high-scho...
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, went to a normal magnet school like I did.
  - SomewhatLikely 8y ago
    That could come off a little tone deaf since many school districts likely can't afford magnet schools.
    - akhilcacharya 8y ago
      Oh no doubt. My magnet school had a graduating class of 40 people. But Bezos didn't go to Exeter.
    - mclehman 8y ago
      That's kind of how it landed here. My old school district has one middle school and one high school, and pushed out the one of the best teachers I've ever had. That said, an organic chemistry class was offered, thanks entirely to the efforts of another great teacher. I never had any real choices in my grades 6-12 education so, to me, being in a position to choose a school with a curriculum catering to one's interests and talents does seem to be a privilege many people take for granted.
hyperpallium 8y ago
There are always arrogant egomaniacs who think they know everything and can do better (aka teenagers). Society benedits from having these people around, for when conditions change, and traditional ways don't work any more. So the extraordinary thing was extraordinary times. (Other questions: why them and not some other teenager? And how did they transition to conventional business, structure, funding, regulations?)

yelloweyes 8y ago

> the classic Gates/Jobs/Zuckerberg etc, is not actually what they did but that they had the sheer temerity to do it at that age without first building their confidence in industry for a few years. They are/were all known for being very arrogant people. Just because some of them become billionaires doesn't mean everyone should be like that. > How did they have the confidence to hold their own when confronted with such adults Have you ever met a 12 year old know-it-all? Same thing. Linus didn't win the debate vs Tanenbaum. He simply happened to be the right guy at the right place at the right time.

lostgame 8y ago
I think this is really a huge part of it. Right place, right time. There are plenty of brilliant people with ideas actually executed very well that just go nowhere for whatever reason or other. Also right team, right people, I mean, right circumstances in general. In those kinds of right circumstances, the dumb move would be not to capitalize on it.
derefr 8y ago
> Have you ever met a 12 year old know-it-all? Same thing. Not at all. Words versus deeds. There are tons of inexperienced people who talk like they know everything; but of those, very few of them actually set out to do the things that "require experience." Say that there's a person who thinks they have an awesome idea for a game, but knows nothing about game development. It's the difference between them talking about this amazing game they want to make "one day", or maybe them posting on Upwork saying "I have an awesome idea for a game, I just need someone to build it"; and them sitting down and trying to actually build their idea themselves right now. It's also a question of how they confront obstacles. Most people without this trait of inexhaustible self-confidence, when they realize they don't have the skills to do something, will stop trying to do it, or will shelve the project and set out to first learn those skills. (And maybe never get back to their original dream/passion, instead just using the acquired skills in more mundane ways. All of you here who got into programming because you wanted to be a game developer know what I mean.) A person with this mindset, meanwhile, will create the best version of the thing they can right now with their limited skillset, and then keep iterating on it, improving their skills in the process of creating the thing. For an example, there are quite a number of webcomic artists working today, who, when they started, didn't know a thing about drawing (or much of anything, being teenagers), and it shows in their first comics. But they didn't care that they didn't know how to do it well; as long as they could do it at all, they just did it, and kept doing it, drawing and publishing a strip every day. And over the years, doing so has taught them how to draw—such that now, they're great at what they do.
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  [deleted]
- 8y ago

B0btheBuilder 8y ago

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When you come from privilege, it's much easier to have confidence that things will work out.

walrus01 8y ago
Gates also went to one of the most expensive, rich kids' private schools in the Seattle area: https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-private-high-school-lakeside-seattle-2017-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-private-high-scho...
akhilcacharya 8y ago
Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, went to a normal magnet school like I did.
- SomewhatLikely 8y ago
  That could come off a little tone deaf since many school districts likely can't afford magnet schools.
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    Oh no doubt. My magnet school had a graduating class of 40 people. But Bezos didn't go to Exeter.
  - mclehman 8y ago
    That's kind of how it landed here. My old school district has one middle school and one high school, and pushed out the one of the best teachers I've ever had. That said, an organic chemistry class was offered, thanks entirely to the efforts of another great teacher. I never had any real choices in my grades 6-12 education so, to me, being in a position to choose a school with a curriculum catering to one's interests and talents does seem to be a privilege many people take for granted.

hyperpallium 8y ago

There are always arrogant egomaniacs who think they know everything and can do better (aka teenagers). Society benedits from having these people around, for when conditions change, and traditional ways don't work any more. So the extraordinary thing was extraordinary times. (Other questions: why them and not some other teenager? And how did they transition to conventional business, structure, funding, regulations?)