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What If Silicon Valley’s ‘Brilliant Jerks’ Are Just Jerks?
- xiphias2 7y agoIt's easy to see if they are just jerks or geeks as well: just look at their early life. In 1998, Levandowski entered the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.[12] As a freshman, he launched an intranet service from his basement.[3] In 2004 he and fellow UC Berkeley engineers built an autonomous motorcycle, nicknamed Ghostrider, for the DARPA Grand Challenge.[13] The Ghostrider motorcycle competed in the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004 and 2005 and was the only autonomous two-wheeled vehicle in the competition.[14] The motorcycle now resides in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.[3] I challenge the author of the article to build this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CYGT97i8qU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CYGT97i8qU
- everly 7y agoWhat bearing does the author's ability to build that have on whether or not Levandowski is a jerk?
- nostrademons 7y agoThat's not the question posed by the headline: it's questioning whether Levandowski is brilliant, not whether he's a jerk. Most people would agree he's a jerk, but it's a pretty big stretch to claim he's not brilliant.
- salawat 7y agoI think that's missing the point so hard as to be a straw man. The real question seems to be whether tolerating and elevating a jerk is an acceptable price to pay for brilliance. Which to me is a fairly good question.
- gtfratteus 7y agoThe parent is replying directly to the article title. It is in no way a straw man argument.
- xiphias2 7y agoSure, not putting people in position of power into prison when they break the law is a huge problem of our society. At the same time I can respect the good things a person achieved in his life and look down on the bad things that he did (and shouldn't have been tolerated). I view the author's view too simplistic: ,,What if “brilliant jerks” are just plain jerks?''
- BurningFrog 7y agoSure. But it's not the question asked in the headline.
- afthonos 7y agoThe headline is misleading about the article, which never seriously questions the brilliance of the jerks in question.
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoIf that’s true about the article, then claiming the headline is misleading is a gigantic understatement. The title would be so egregiously misleading as to seriously call into question the ethics of the author and make me very disinclined to bother reading it (even apart from the fact that writing about SV elites being jerks is hardly interesting, useful or newsworthy).
- afthonos 7y agoHeadlines are rarely written by the author, but I agree with the sentiment.
- mcphage 7y agoNo, it’s just a failure of reading comprehension on your part.
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoOn your part you mean?
- sincarne 7y agoI don’t believe the headline is misleading. I think it does a bad job of conveying the author’s intention. I read it as “who cares how brilliant they are when they are such huge jerks.” I felt they were trying to say “stop putting the emphasis on the brilliant part, and let’s talk about the jerk.
- mcguire 7y agoIt doesn't dispute that he and others are brilliant, but whether that excuses the behavior of a jerk. It doesn't.
- DanBC 7y agoYou should ignore the headlines because they're usually junk.
- RobLach 7y agoNot brilliant enough to realize that being a jerk is a shitty way to live your life and negatively tinges all your work.
- donmcronald 7y agoThat’s got to cost a ton of money to build. Who pays for it?
- hkmurakami 7y agoUsually the school has a budget for this. Manufacturers donate hardware as well. I think our DARPA grand challenge team had a Toyota tundra (or similar) donated to them.
- candiodari 7y agoWell "ton" is not very accurate. University teams (some of them) are legendary in how far they get on how little funds. You'd need a used motorcycle, a garage (which will be donated), time from 4-5 AI PhD students (again donated), test space (supermarket parking on sundays or at night), actuators (bad, recycled or donated ones), time in a metal shop (let's say 2000-3000$), various parts and ... (let's say $1000), travel and ... expenses (let's say $10k), ... It doesn't have to cost much more than $20k or so. Budgets went into $x00k range for the first Darpa challenge (x < 3 or so). Who paid for it ? DARPA. Also known as the US military. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihXE1Iu5E3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihXE1Iu5E3o
- rrss 7y agoHolmes seems like a pretty good counterexample. PS when you copy and paste wikipedia you should say so.
- KaiserPro 7y agoMmmmHmm. So long as you're a "geek" its ok to be a monstrous shit? Is that what you're arguing here?
- CapitalistCartr 7y agoNo, the headline doesn't question that he's a jerk, merely his being brilliant. xiphias2 demonstrates his brilliance.
- KaiserPro 7y agoaaahhh, its ok to be a monstrous shit if you have some skill? gotcha
- dev_dull 7y agoYou usually only meet jerks when they’re in positions of prestige and very competent (brilliant?). Why? Because the jerks who aren’t good at they’re job are fired long ago. You might start to think that there’s some connection, but really is just they’ve managed to barely hang out by virtue of their skill.
- dgellow 7y ago> Because the jerks who aren’t good at they’re job are fired long ago. That’s wishful thinking. A lot of jerks will never be fired and are terrible at their job. It’s not that simple and isn’t cheap to fire someone. IMHO the main difference is mostly that jerks with power will negatively impact more people, thus are more visible.
- User23 7y agoThe jerks with power who appear bad at their job are actually good at their real job and that's politicking. They're only bad at their nominal job, whatever it may be, which doesn't matter by definition since they are successful enough to have power.
- postfacto 7y ago^^ This. Also, your real job is making your manager look good to his manager, not actually the nominal job of writing reliable, stable, flexible code that you signed up for in your employment agreement.
- arethuza 7y ago"Because the jerks who aren’t good at they’re job are fired long ago" In many organisations, usually larger ones, they're usually the first to get promoted as they spend all of their time "managing up".
- sys_64738 7y agoPretty much this. Those who are irreplaceable (if you think they're not then it's not you) can get away with anything. But they are a minute percentage of people in the workplace. Those who are jerks to others will be gone as you say simply because they're toxic.
- cryptozeus 7y ago“But to me, the Levandowski litigation again shows the tech industry’s schizophrenia about those brilliant jerks. ” Sure let’s generalize entire industry based on one nutcase. Brilliant article.
- bsamuels 7y agoI mean the article literally lists off 4 or 5 others, and I can think of at least 3 or 4 that aren't listed
- BurningFrog 7y ago"This cherry picked example exactly confirms my preconceived notion!"
- mcguire 7y agoTo be fair to cryptozeus, Levandowski is in the photo directly under the title.
- sjg007 7y agoThe whole brillant jerk thing is epitomized in "Halt and Catch Fire" ... So I am going to go with nuance.
- natalyarostova 7y agoI don't really understand the headline question. Levandowski is brilliant, that's not really up for debate.
- bdcravens 7y agoThe article is paywalled, so I may be off-base about the article's premise, but my take is that the "brilliant jerks" of our industry (first ones that come to mind are Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds) not only get a pass because due to results, but that their personality is worth emulating. The idea I think is that we need to push back, and call being a jerk what it really is: a character flaw, not an asset.
- natalyarostova 7y agoYes I agree with that. It's always too bad when people realize they can get away with being a jerk just because they're talented.
- bdcravens 7y agoI believe rudeness and arrogance are easier than kindness and empathy. It can then be tempting to let what's easy become the template for our confirmation bias.
- deepsun 7y agoSorry I probably missed something, but when was Linus Torvalds being a jerk? Sure, he showed finger to NVidia the company once, which was funny, but didn't harm anyone. His mails are also very straightforward and up to the point, without diluting it with compliments, contrary to current cultural code. I don't think skipping compliments equals to being a jerk. I'd look at actions, and I don't remember Linus did something nasty.
- bdcravens 7y agoLinus himself admitted to it: "My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me. I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry. The above is basically a long-winded way to get to the somewhat painful personal admission that hey, I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely." https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/16/167 https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/16/167
- justinator 7y agoWhen they write, "Brilliant Jerks", do they mean, "Sociopaths"?
- draw_down 7y agoThe development that we are now willing to refuse to see the talent of people we don’t like is interesting on its own. But Levandowski is a terrible example; there seems to have been no doubt about his brilliance.
- geggam 7y agoSometimes when I deal with people I think are less intelligent than myself I wonder what it would be like to be in that rare stratosphere of intelligence never running into someone who you thought wasnt an idiot. Then I wonder if I would become a jerk simply due to fatigue. Good thing I dont have to worry about it too much :)
- BurningFrog 7y agoIf you're actually a genius, you understand that people dumber than you aren't idiots. They're normal.
- candiodari 7y agoAnd that's supposed to make you feel better ? Go to city hall or DMV, try get something done, and you will understand how dealing with inflexible idiots feels. (note that you're not dumb because you work at city hall/DMV, but if you're not dumb you have better options and go somewhere else. So over time, these places collect idiots). When you're smarter, there's a lot of DMVs. It's not like dealing with people a little less smart or smarter than you feels (in fact they will regularly outsmart you, you'll just outsmart them just a tad more than the other way). That's just fine, interesting, and doesn't stand in anyone's way. It's dealing with people much dumber than you that's the problem. Here's a repeating conversation that's frustrating. The problem is smart people play chess, whereas normal people just play a move. "I want to X" "But that's (insane|difficult|not what I'd like to do|not what I see|...), why not Y ?" "Because Y leads to Z, to A, and likely to B, which is a negative for me" "But why not C ?" "Because C leads to D, E and then again to B, which is not what I want" "But ..." (continue for another 10 minutes) Or people that hate you because you "make them feel dumb" (which is exactly what they do to you when you have to explain everything of course, but never mind that). And you might say "why not make them feel smart". And sure, I do that. That's easy. But it takes time and energy, and I'm just not going to do that 100x every day. 10x, sure. No problem. But there's a limit. Or people who feel like they're entitled to your intelligence. Every last problem they encounter. "Hey <drop everything and> come look at this", and then the first time you don't they immediately escalate. Or just playing chess, then looking at "idiots" moving on the playing field. And seeing them placing themselves into impossible positions and ... Also worse is that you see people's motivations. How, say, social workers are going to discuss a new policy to do X, and this sounds really positive and you're the only one in the room that's "but, no it isn't positive at all. Because the motivations of these guys that are involved are to ... and that will lead to ..., which is going to destroy these peoples' lives, and you KNOW this but you're suggesting the policy because your organization will once again have to expand". For example, "early detection of child abuse" by people who are paid for finding child abuse will lead to ... false accusations. And of course, once again they will find much more than their worst fear. Or helping the homeless by "providing accomodations", and you want to scream that no, they want them off the street because they think it'll increase their house's value and their ego while effectively arresting and locking up these people. Or worse: you actually go look at the accommodations they were talking about, because you're interested. Either for those abused kids, or for those homeless. And then you know: there is no act as despicable, counterproductive and outright evil as "professionals" "helping" people.
- sweeneyrod 7y ago> People like Levandowski, Travis Kalanick, Parker Conrad, Elizabeth Holmes and Andy Rubin This is a really weird grouping. It's mixing people who have built incredibly valuable things (Rubin) with those who are famous for failing to do so (Holmes); and people who broke the law by committing fraud (which seems like an unusual use of the word "jerk") with those who have been accused of sexual misconduct.
- mcguire 7y agoLevandowski did a lot of ethically sketchy things up to the point where he allegedly broke the law. Travis Kalanick did a lot of ethically sketchy things up to the point where he was removed from his own company. Holmes did a lot of ethically sketchy things up to the point where the wheels came off. Conrad did sketchy things up to the point where someone realized he wasn't actually doing what he was supposed to. Rubin did sketchy things up to the point that Google paid him to close the door behind him. The key commonality is that they did sketchy things, people knew they were doing sketchy things, and the entrepreneureal and tech community lionized them up to the point where doing so became embarrassing. (And seems to be continuing to do so, judging by this thread.)
- beardedman 7y agoJerks are jerks are jerks are jerks. Their intellectual acumen is irrelevant.
- KaiserPro 7y agoWhat if, and hear me out on this, we tell people off when they do something wrong? I know its controversial, but imagine that this was someone's really cute husky. Sure every day it would bounce about the place and make funny husky noises. However every week, on a sunday, it would attack your child and poop on the carpet. A normal person wouldn't shrug and say, "Hubert the husky brings a lot of value to the household, so lets just ignore this." No. You'd bollock the arrogant shit when it did wrong, and praise it when it was good. The dirty secret of Silicon value is that actually, individuals are replaceable. What isn't replaceable is time and money. The cult of the Jerk is a defence mechanism to allow shit to continue to be shits. repeat after me: If they've broken the law or done something morally grey, bollock them. I know that sounds radical and foreign, but its part of a thing called "wider society"
- mcguire 7y agoIf Hubert the Husky makes a shit-ton of money, the definition of "did wrong" changes.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoI don't care how much money someone earns, be it a dog or otherwise, or if they can buy me untold carpets. I am still going to tell them off if they shit in the middle of the living room floor.
- Tade0 7y agoProblem is, the incentive for businesses is to fire you and make Hubert the Husky happy, so only such businesses survive.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoI knew there was a good reason why I hadn't commented any code, named all variables using the elvish translations for a variety of diseases of sheep and built the DB backend out of practically unknown fork of paradox for dos that will only run queries if you keep the lowercase letter 'j' held down. edit - also known as 'best practice' when writing bespoke software for industry.