3 ms·

Because "geniuses" may well want to get reasonably wealthy and retire, but might be fundamentally unable to adapt to working for a large corporation.

cambalache 6y ago
Correct, on top of that it is a highly presumptuous and naive take. I originally wrote 99% of "geniuses" will never work for a FAANG (I was being generous). First of all there are dozens upon dozens of academic fields besides CS. Most of the people in the top of those fields (think people in medicine,chemistry, math, economics, history, finance and a long etc) will work with Ads. Then you have plenty of geniuses in non-academic fields (guys like Magnus Carlsen or Caruana), poets, writers, musicians, sportsmen, again none of them thinking about how making you click an add. Then you have lots of smart people in CS, but not in the US/Canada etc, plenty of smart Chinese/Indians/Russians and on and on etc who for many reasons wont work for a western company. Then you have also plenty of smart american CS graduates who dont want to work for a FAANG, or will work for a very short time and leave for greener pastures from their POV. All in all, assuming 1% of this generation "geniuses" work in SV is an extremely generous supposition.
- derefr 6y ago
  Not going to rebut your entire comment—some of the assumptions are just that, assumptions about what the word “geniuses” would be implicitly taken to mean in context—but some specific points: > people in the top of those fields ... math ... history I don’t know any way for a “genius” mathematician or historian to get rich pursuing their own career. Some of the other examples, sure, but not these ones. It can actually make more sense for people in certain academic disciplines to take the underlying g factor that allowed them to become so good at their discipline, port it over to becoming good at programming, and then make the most money they can doing programming. (It’d be even better to port their intelligence over to an attempt at being an investment banker; but that field has far higher barriers to entry.) > plenty of smart Chinese/Indians/Russians ... wont work for a western company I think the presumption is that they’d work for China’s/India’s/Russia’s equivalent of FAANG. I.e., take the highest-paying “cog in the machine” programming jobs they could in their own markets. > poets, writers, musicians Many of the “geniuses” of these fields certainly do end up making their money in advertising, if not “ad tech” precisely. If a songwriter/musician gets wealthy-enough to retire, most of the time, it isn’t usually from royalties from a hit single, or even from royalties from creating the soundtrack to a popular movie. It’s almost always from big-contract (but work-for-hire) advertising jingles. Artists (or, moreover, illustrators and visual designers)? Again, usually the biggest contracts are with advertisers—or with product-design consultancies who get paid to increase products’ marketability through a visual refresh.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    You have this weird assumption than making lots of money is the measure of being a genius, maybe it is a cultural thing, but I would consider Einstein, Godel, Turing, Grothendiek, Kafka geniuses and Steve Jobs, Rockefeller, Sam Walton et al not in that category, and it seems you will think the opposite.

cambalache 6y ago

Correct, on top of that it is a highly presumptuous and naive take. I originally wrote 99% of "geniuses" will never work for a FAANG (I was being generous). First of all there are dozens upon dozens of academic fields besides CS. Most of the people in the top of those fields (think people in medicine,chemistry, math, economics, history, finance and a long etc) will work with Ads. Then you have plenty of geniuses in non-academic fields (guys like Magnus Carlsen or Caruana), poets, writers, musicians, sportsmen, again none of them thinking about how making you click an add. Then you have lots of smart people in CS, but not in the US/Canada etc, plenty of smart Chinese/Indians/Russians and on and on etc who for many reasons wont work for a western company. Then you have also plenty of smart american CS graduates who dont want to work for a FAANG, or will work for a very short time and leave for greener pastures from their POV. All in all, assuming 1% of this generation "geniuses" work in SV is an extremely generous supposition.

derefr 6y ago
Not going to rebut your entire comment—some of the assumptions are just that, assumptions about what the word “geniuses” would be implicitly taken to mean in context—but some specific points: > people in the top of those fields ... math ... history I don’t know any way for a “genius” mathematician or historian to get rich pursuing their own career. Some of the other examples, sure, but not these ones. It can actually make more sense for people in certain academic disciplines to take the underlying g factor that allowed them to become so good at their discipline, port it over to becoming good at programming, and then make the most money they can doing programming. (It’d be even better to port their intelligence over to an attempt at being an investment banker; but that field has far higher barriers to entry.) > plenty of smart Chinese/Indians/Russians ... wont work for a western company I think the presumption is that they’d work for China’s/India’s/Russia’s equivalent of FAANG. I.e., take the highest-paying “cog in the machine” programming jobs they could in their own markets. > poets, writers, musicians Many of the “geniuses” of these fields certainly do end up making their money in advertising, if not “ad tech” precisely. If a songwriter/musician gets wealthy-enough to retire, most of the time, it isn’t usually from royalties from a hit single, or even from royalties from creating the soundtrack to a popular movie. It’s almost always from big-contract (but work-for-hire) advertising jingles. Artists (or, moreover, illustrators and visual designers)? Again, usually the biggest contracts are with advertisers—or with product-design consultancies who get paid to increase products’ marketability through a visual refresh.
- cambalache 6y ago
  You have this weird assumption than making lots of money is the measure of being a genius, maybe it is a cultural thing, but I would consider Einstein, Godel, Turing, Grothendiek, Kafka geniuses and Steve Jobs, Rockefeller, Sam Walton et al not in that category, and it seems you will think the opposite.