6 ms·

Great Hacker != Great Hire

24 points by antiform 18y ago

d0mine 18y ago
If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who believes that his own preferences are more important than doing what is best for the users. Small ISVs don't need people like that. If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who is not willing to do any of the un-fun things that need to be done. Small ISVs don't need people like that. If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who is not willing to help the people who use the software he creates. Small ISVs don't need people like that. I've read "Great Hackers" too but noticed nothing of the sort.
- jrockway 18y ago
  Can you edit your post to not stretch the page? Surround the text of the article with asterisks: Here is a direct quote Here is my reply. this->is_for('code'); # not direct quotes Edit: thanks!
  - aston 18y ago
    Plus one for blockquotes on news.yc
- raganwald 18y ago
  When I first read Eric's essay, I noticed the same thing. It seems words like "Hacker" are so emotionally charged that when you use them, people read their preconcevied biases--good or bad--into what you are saying without bothering to actually listen/read carefully. See also: Liberal, Conservative.
pg 18y ago
A great hacker might well be a bad match for the sort of company that calls itself an "ISV." But they seem to be appreciated at ones like Google, and they make good founders.
- hello_moto 18y ago
  Like-minded people appreciate and respect each other (e.g. hackers praised other hackers, developers praised other developers). But that doesn't mean they're the answer to all software development issues. Case and point: Software development process at Google vs Microsoft. The former is more like code-n-shoot (not all, but some), the latter is more disciplined due to years of experience. The former is close to the definition of "hackers" while the latter is more of "developers" type.
  - pg 18y ago
    Results of the two approaches: http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chdet=1215904750477&chddm=381616&cmpto=NASDAQ:MSFT&q=NASDAQ:GOOG&#38 http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chd...;
    - hello_moto 18y ago
      Yahoo! went down from $300 at its peak to what now? Wasn't Google went up to 700 and went down to 450 ish. I see they rebound now, what about tomorrow and in the future? On another topic: http://valleywag.com/5018349/googles-either-in-a-hiring-freeze-or-this-guy-didnt-get-a-phone-interview http://valleywag.com/5018349/googles-either-in-a-hiring-free... http://valleywag.com/5024181/google-cutting-costs-hiring-slowdown-noticeable-says-employee http://valleywag.com/5024181/google-cutting-costs-hiring-slo... Someone who works inside Google confirmed me as well. By the way, their main money making machine is written in a non-hacker platform.
      - pg 18y ago
        Yahoo never had a lot of great hackers. That's the main cause of their trouble, in fact. They regarded hackers as a commodity.
        hello_moto 18y ago
        How can you say this? Yahoo! is a big company. Blaming their trouble on one thing seems to be absurd. One thing that comes to my mind is that when your company grows, you need business savvy and a good management team. These two are something not "hacker"-ish trait. Google seems to do quite well [Note: For A While] because they made good decisions. It has nothing to do at all with Sergey or Larry coding skill [Reference to your earlier statement that they seem to be a good founder because they're "hacker"]. Remember they almost sold their hit-single to Yahoo! for just about One Million Dollar. It has everything to do with time, luck, and their decisions.
gaius 18y ago
We have learned to value the needs of the users over our own preferences. He's missed the main point that PG makes about languages - if you are writing software to run on your own servers and is delivered through HTTP, no-one cares what language you use. In that context, fussiness is fine.
- jrockway 18y ago
  Languages are especially irrelevant these days. If you want to write a Java desktop app, you don't have to use the Java language anymore. Clojure, kawa, JRuby, ... are all options. If you want to write a server app, which is pretty much what everything is these days, you can use any language. They'll all do fine. The choice of language is never going to be your scalability problem.
nostrademons 18y ago
It's probably worth noting that Eric Sink and PG are in different industries. Eric Sink started a company that sells software. PG started a company that sells a service enabled by software, and invests largely in similar companies. One of the reasons PG suggests building server-based software is that you have more flexibility in language choice, and hence more ability to hire great hackers. But there are other reasons to go for that business model: recurring revenue, fewer distribution hurdles, less chance of incompatibilities, ownership of customer data, network effects, etc. I think there was an article about open-source software and Sun's cash hemorrhage that made it to Hacker News recently - it was either here or Proggit. That's another instance. Google was cited in the article as a company that supports open-source - well, that's because Google's business model is selling services supported by software, and so it behooves them to get the price of software down as low as possible. For that matter - hardware, software, and software services are all complements (in a microeconomic sense), and so each of them has an incentive to commoditize the others. Hence we have Google supporting open-source and buying commodity hardware; Sun and RedHat supporting open-source; Microsoft training lots of developers and providing plenty of tools for them; Apple basing OS X on open UNIX instead of proprietary MacOS 9; and great hackers everywhere supporting open source, because it drives up the value of the service they provide.
- pg 18y ago
  The difference is not so much where the software runs as what the goal of the company is. I'm interested in startups: companies that at least try to grow huge. Whereas the "small ISVs" he writes about are just ordinary small businesses that happen to write software. Since in the latter there's little scope for brilliance, you're not willing to trade other things for it. An ordinary small business doesn't need people so smart that they can redefine the problem. They just need people who are cheap and reliable. Whereas startups generally try to hire the smartest people they can, even if they're difficult or expensive.
  - demallien 18y ago
    Paul, that distinction you use: I'm interested in startups: companies that at least try to grow huge. Whereas the "small ISVs" he writes about are just ordinary small businesses that happen to write software is more a justification of your own prejudices than reality. For every Google, there's a Microsoft, or an Adobe. Software as a Service, and plain old ISV application software can both scale immensely. I do not need to hire extra bodies if I'm selling 1 million copies a day of my app than if I'm selling 10 copies. The only thing stopping an ISV from growing is the popularity of the software, just as the only thing stopping a Service from growing is popularity of their webapp. In neither case there is no roadblock to growth caused by a lack of resources. ISV != small. It never has, and it probably never will.
erdos2 18y ago
"But the essay causes concern. I worry that lots of small ISVs will read his article and believe that they need to hire great hackers." Why does this rise to the level of concern? If these small ISVs take what the author considers misguided advice, they will be less competitive and his dreary SourceSafe-based business will do even better.
- giles_bowkett 18y ago
  hahahahahaha a business based on SourceSafe.
edw519 18y ago
My favorite interpretation of the hacker/painter metaphor is that great things can be done by a team of one. Try as I may, I simply cannot wrap my mind around the concept of "building a team" to create the Mona Lisa or paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Just look at this for 5 minutes and try to imagine it was designed and built by anything other than a team of one: http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78386 http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=... Kinda makes the "Great Hacker != Great Hire" argument kinda moot, huh?
- pavelludiq 18y ago
  that's just noise for me. This is a better example: http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs25/300W/f/2008/043/7/9/perfektna_krasota_by_nasimo.jpg http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs25/300W/f/2008/043/7/9/perfekt... its made by Nastera(aka Nasimo), one of Bulgaria's best graffiti artists and a Balkan champion. What you show doesn't look like it was designed at all. It was paint pored on the floor!?!? But still you point is correct, just not your example. ps I did choose my example very fast, but im a long time graffiti art fan, so i knew what to look for. I didn't look specifically for this work, but i knew what artist i wanted to show.
giles_bowkett 18y ago
It's official. This site has completely jumped the shark. Even if it is a weekend, which is the opposite of prime time for a site like this, the fact that this link appears in the top ten, it means Hacker News is OVER. Easily one of the stupidest things I've ever read. I've seen better logic on the back of cereal boxes. I seriously, sincerely believe that my dog Kaia who recently passed away (RIP) was smarter than the person who wrote this post.
- hs 18y ago
  note the post date: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 I knew the article is old; however, i hang around just to read comments from specific users
  - giles_bowkett 18y ago
    I don't get how the post date's relevant. maybe you're responding to somebody else's comment and you clicked reply on mine by accident? I was saying that the fact that the HN community in aggregate thought that this blog post was worth sharing with each other for any reason meant that the inevitable point-of-no-return signal/noise collapse had occured.
- raganwald 18y ago
  What a bird-brain comment. Sadly, that bird may be the canary in the coal mine ;-) This post is old. So what? Well, old posts that have merit ought to be reposted. But old posts of little value? Why are we upmodding this? So that we can all agree that Eric is wrong about hackers in a self-congratulatory fit of back slapping and strutting? Either way, I agree that this is another sign that HN is changing character. I am not prepared to say it is changing in a bad way, or that the site has no value, or that there is going to be an exodus. But I agree that there is a change going on.
  - giles_bowkett 18y ago
    "They say I'm a birdbrain. If I am, can I just fly away?" http://youtube.com/watch?v=7Ynw9RT9coU http://youtube.com/watch?v=7Ynw9RT9coU All right let me dress up in a suit and monocle to accomodate the distinguished gentleman. I've gone into great detail as to why sites of this nature are all inherently doomed via a flaw in their paradigm. http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/summon-monsters-open-door-heal-or-die.html http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/summon-monsters-ope... If my learned colleague shalt consult the appended citation, he will see that my predicated futures have come to trespass, and verily this event doth match the anticipatification in profile.
IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
Yet another response from someone who missed the whole point of one of pg's articles. In my experience, "great hackers", or stevie's "done, and gets things smart" types, and so on, are exactly the ones who seem to care the most about users. Great hackers don't suffer inefficiency; they correct it. If you want your nasty little problems solved elegantly, expose the great hackers to them. If you want to throw warm bodies at annoyed customers, find someone mediocre and reliable. Great hackers are the ones that cringe in revulsion at a sloppy code structure, not (just) because they're OCD about that kind of thing, but because inconsistency gets in the way of creating beauty. Erik seems to say that pg is suggesting we should hire a bunch of prima donnas who don't do "real" work. What I got out of the GH essay is that, if you can hire Edison, it's madness to put him to work installing light switches. Great hackers are the game changers, and if you're not a game changing institution, you won't get them. Hire people who care about users. Great hackers do. More than Eric seems to realize. Hire people who understand the difference between a job and a hobby. The difference seems to be that you enjoy your hobby and not your job. I'm not convinced that's a good thing. Hire people who want to contribute in lots of different ways to the success of the product. Great hackers turn mediocrity into gold. They make everyone on the team more productive, and add value all over the place.
- hello_moto 18y ago
  The same can be said as a CEO, CTO, CIO, Managers, Accountant, Athletes or basically, anybody who works hard and always try to improve their skills to be successful.

24 points by antiform 18y ago

If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who believes that his own preferences are more important than doing what is best for the users. Small ISVs don't need people like that. If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who is not willing to do any of the un-fun things that need to be done. Small ISVs don't need people like that. If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who is not willing to help the people who use the software he creates. Small ISVs don't need people like that. I've read "Great Hackers" too but noticed nothing of the sort.

jrockway 18y ago
Can you edit your post to not stretch the page? Surround the text of the article with asterisks: Here is a direct quote Here is my reply. this->is_for('code'); # not direct quotes Edit: thanks!
- aston 18y ago
  Plus one for blockquotes on news.yc
raganwald 18y ago
When I first read Eric's essay, I noticed the same thing. It seems words like "Hacker" are so emotionally charged that when you use them, people read their preconcevied biases--good or bad--into what you are saying without bothering to actually listen/read carefully. See also: Liberal, Conservative.

pg 18y ago

A great hacker might well be a bad match for the sort of company that calls itself an "ISV." But they seem to be appreciated at ones like Google, and they make good founders.

hello_moto 18y ago
Like-minded people appreciate and respect each other (e.g. hackers praised other hackers, developers praised other developers). But that doesn't mean they're the answer to all software development issues. Case and point: Software development process at Google vs Microsoft. The former is more like code-n-shoot (not all, but some), the latter is more disciplined due to years of experience. The former is close to the definition of "hackers" while the latter is more of "developers" type.
- pg 18y ago
  Results of the two approaches: http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chdet=1215904750477&chddm=381616&cmpto=NASDAQ:MSFT&q=NASDAQ:GOOG&#38 http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chd...;
  - hello_moto 18y ago
    Yahoo! went down from $300 at its peak to what now? Wasn't Google went up to 700 and went down to 450 ish. I see they rebound now, what about tomorrow and in the future? On another topic: http://valleywag.com/5018349/googles-either-in-a-hiring-freeze-or-this-guy-didnt-get-a-phone-interview http://valleywag.com/5018349/googles-either-in-a-hiring-free... http://valleywag.com/5024181/google-cutting-costs-hiring-slowdown-noticeable-says-employee http://valleywag.com/5024181/google-cutting-costs-hiring-slo... Someone who works inside Google confirmed me as well. By the way, their main money making machine is written in a non-hacker platform.
    - pg 18y ago
      Yahoo never had a lot of great hackers. That's the main cause of their trouble, in fact. They regarded hackers as a commodity.
      - hello_moto 18y ago
        How can you say this? Yahoo! is a big company. Blaming their trouble on one thing seems to be absurd. One thing that comes to my mind is that when your company grows, you need business savvy and a good management team. These two are something not "hacker"-ish trait. Google seems to do quite well [Note: For A While] because they made good decisions. It has nothing to do at all with Sergey or Larry coding skill [Reference to your earlier statement that they seem to be a good founder because they're "hacker"]. Remember they almost sold their hit-single to Yahoo! for just about One Million Dollar. It has everything to do with time, luck, and their decisions.

gaius 18y ago

We have learned to value the needs of the users over our own preferences. He's missed the main point that PG makes about languages - if you are writing software to run on your own servers and is delivered through HTTP, no-one cares what language you use. In that context, fussiness is fine.

jrockway 18y ago
Languages are especially irrelevant these days. If you want to write a Java desktop app, you don't have to use the Java language anymore. Clojure, kawa, JRuby, ... are all options. If you want to write a server app, which is pretty much what everything is these days, you can use any language. They'll all do fine. The choice of language is never going to be your scalability problem.

nostrademons 18y ago

It's probably worth noting that Eric Sink and PG are in different industries. Eric Sink started a company that sells software. PG started a company that sells a service enabled by software, and invests largely in similar companies. One of the reasons PG suggests building server-based software is that you have more flexibility in language choice, and hence more ability to hire great hackers. But there are other reasons to go for that business model: recurring revenue, fewer distribution hurdles, less chance of incompatibilities, ownership of customer data, network effects, etc. I think there was an article about open-source software and Sun's cash hemorrhage that made it to Hacker News recently - it was either here or Proggit. That's another instance. Google was cited in the article as a company that supports open-source - well, that's because Google's business model is selling services supported by software, and so it behooves them to get the price of software down as low as possible. For that matter - hardware, software, and software services are all complements (in a microeconomic sense), and so each of them has an incentive to commoditize the others. Hence we have Google supporting open-source and buying commodity hardware; Sun and RedHat supporting open-source; Microsoft training lots of developers and providing plenty of tools for them; Apple basing OS X on open UNIX instead of proprietary MacOS 9; and great hackers everywhere supporting open source, because it drives up the value of the service they provide.

pg 18y ago
The difference is not so much where the software runs as what the goal of the company is. I'm interested in startups: companies that at least try to grow huge. Whereas the "small ISVs" he writes about are just ordinary small businesses that happen to write software. Since in the latter there's little scope for brilliance, you're not willing to trade other things for it. An ordinary small business doesn't need people so smart that they can redefine the problem. They just need people who are cheap and reliable. Whereas startups generally try to hire the smartest people they can, even if they're difficult or expensive.
- demallien 18y ago
  Paul, that distinction you use: I'm interested in startups: companies that at least try to grow huge. Whereas the "small ISVs" he writes about are just ordinary small businesses that happen to write software is more a justification of your own prejudices than reality. For every Google, there's a Microsoft, or an Adobe. Software as a Service, and plain old ISV application software can both scale immensely. I do not need to hire extra bodies if I'm selling 1 million copies a day of my app than if I'm selling 10 copies. The only thing stopping an ISV from growing is the popularity of the software, just as the only thing stopping a Service from growing is popularity of their webapp. In neither case there is no roadblock to growth caused by a lack of resources. ISV != small. It never has, and it probably never will.

erdos2 18y ago

"But the essay causes concern. I worry that lots of small ISVs will read his article and believe that they need to hire great hackers." Why does this rise to the level of concern? If these small ISVs take what the author considers misguided advice, they will be less competitive and his dreary SourceSafe-based business will do even better.

giles_bowkett 18y ago
hahahahahaha a business based on SourceSafe.

edw519 18y ago

My favorite interpretation of the hacker/painter metaphor is that great things can be done by a team of one. Try as I may, I simply cannot wrap my mind around the concept of "building a team" to create the Mona Lisa or paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Just look at this for 5 minutes and try to imagine it was designed and built by anything other than a team of one: http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78386 http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=... Kinda makes the "Great Hacker != Great Hire" argument kinda moot, huh?

pavelludiq 18y ago
that's just noise for me. This is a better example: http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs25/300W/f/2008/043/7/9/perfektna_krasota_by_nasimo.jpg http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs25/300W/f/2008/043/7/9/perfekt... its made by Nastera(aka Nasimo), one of Bulgaria's best graffiti artists and a Balkan champion. What you show doesn't look like it was designed at all. It was paint pored on the floor!?!? But still you point is correct, just not your example. ps I did choose my example very fast, but im a long time graffiti art fan, so i knew what to look for. I didn't look specifically for this work, but i knew what artist i wanted to show.

giles_bowkett 18y ago

It's official. This site has completely jumped the shark. Even if it is a weekend, which is the opposite of prime time for a site like this, the fact that this link appears in the top ten, it means Hacker News is OVER. Easily one of the stupidest things I've ever read. I've seen better logic on the back of cereal boxes. I seriously, sincerely believe that my dog Kaia who recently passed away (RIP) was smarter than the person who wrote this post.

hs 18y ago
note the post date: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 I knew the article is old; however, i hang around just to read comments from specific users
- giles_bowkett 18y ago
  I don't get how the post date's relevant. maybe you're responding to somebody else's comment and you clicked reply on mine by accident? I was saying that the fact that the HN community in aggregate thought that this blog post was worth sharing with each other for any reason meant that the inevitable point-of-no-return signal/noise collapse had occured.
raganwald 18y ago
What a bird-brain comment. Sadly, that bird may be the canary in the coal mine ;-) This post is old. So what? Well, old posts that have merit ought to be reposted. But old posts of little value? Why are we upmodding this? So that we can all agree that Eric is wrong about hackers in a self-congratulatory fit of back slapping and strutting? Either way, I agree that this is another sign that HN is changing character. I am not prepared to say it is changing in a bad way, or that the site has no value, or that there is going to be an exodus. But I agree that there is a change going on.
- giles_bowkett 18y ago
  "They say I'm a birdbrain. If I am, can I just fly away?" http://youtube.com/watch?v=7Ynw9RT9coU http://youtube.com/watch?v=7Ynw9RT9coU All right let me dress up in a suit and monocle to accomodate the distinguished gentleman. I've gone into great detail as to why sites of this nature are all inherently doomed via a flaw in their paradigm. http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/summon-monsters-open-door-heal-or-die.html http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/summon-monsters-ope... If my learned colleague shalt consult the appended citation, he will see that my predicated futures have come to trespass, and verily this event doth match the anticipatification in profile.

IsaacSchlueter 18y ago

Yet another response from someone who missed the whole point of one of pg's articles. In my experience, "great hackers", or stevie's "done, and gets things smart" types, and so on, are exactly the ones who seem to care the most about users. Great hackers don't suffer inefficiency; they correct it. If you want your nasty little problems solved elegantly, expose the great hackers to them. If you want to throw warm bodies at annoyed customers, find someone mediocre and reliable. Great hackers are the ones that cringe in revulsion at a sloppy code structure, not (just) because they're OCD about that kind of thing, but because inconsistency gets in the way of creating beauty. Erik seems to say that pg is suggesting we should hire a bunch of prima donnas who don't do "real" work. What I got out of the GH essay is that, if you can hire Edison, it's madness to put him to work installing light switches. Great hackers are the game changers, and if you're not a game changing institution, you won't get them. Hire people who care about users. Great hackers do. More than Eric seems to realize. Hire people who understand the difference between a job and a hobby. The difference seems to be that you enjoy your hobby and not your job. I'm not convinced that's a good thing. Hire people who want to contribute in lots of different ways to the success of the product. Great hackers turn mediocrity into gold. They make everyone on the team more productive, and add value all over the place.

hello_moto 18y ago
The same can be said as a CEO, CTO, CIO, Managers, Accountant, Athletes or basically, anybody who works hard and always try to improve their skills to be successful.