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Are there only a few paths for independent thinkers? > Independent-mindedness seems to be more a matter of nature than nurture. Which means if you pick the wro

Are there only a few paths for independent thinkers? > Independent-mindedness seems to be more a matter of nature than nurture. Which means if you pick the wrong type of work, you're going to be unhappy. If you're naturally independent-minded, you're going to find it frustrating to be a middle manager. And if you're naturally conventional-minded, you're going to be sailing into a headwind if you try to do original research. I'm asking this seriously. I'm a fairly unconventional thinker. (I'm not sure that's always or even mostly a good thing.) So I do find it frustrating to be in middle management, as I have been numerous times. It's also usually frustrating to report to middle management. I much prefer to figure out solutions and pursue them independently. HOWEVER, I've also thus far found nothing but greater frustrations as an organizational leader or solo entrepreneur. (Good thing I'm currently neither.) What are the options for the independent thinker who doesn't want to follow orders, doesn't care to lead others, but also wants to be a part of a team? Someone who knows they need others with complementary skills? Surely I'm not the only nerd who fits this bill. Is there a work model for a team of independent thinkers who wish to neither lead nor follow, but simply cooperate? My gut says there is, that it's probably pretty obvious, and I'm just blind to it. Or maybe that they exist, but tend to fail. The only thing that comes to mind is to be a co-founder in the early stages of a startup, but if that succeeds you'll end up in a leadership role pretty quickly. Not everyone gets to be Woz. Anyone?

psysharp 6y ago
Well be can begin with defining leader. Can't you say that a leader is one element of the group who is more intuned to regulate the stress levels of the group, and by having one the group can operate more efficiently? Isn't it infact burden but limitied to a designated element? Not everyone needs to be a leader, isn't that the point of having one? It might just be a completely seperate characteristics from independence
erikpukinskis 6y ago
You can have a small independent business. Buy a backhoe and become and excavator. Learn how to build custom cabinets. You will need to hire people from time to time, but you won’t have to work in concert with anyone 40 hours a week. In software, the best examples I see of that are in video games. Lots of solo developers. Hard to succeed but if you want it enough, the path is clear. There are solo web developers too. But you need to be able to do sales and support. You’re right startups are out because they grow and you’ll find yourself surrounded soon enough. I guess my advice is treat your jobs like daily networking events, try to find people, especially with complementary skill sets, who you like and who like you. Have a side project, a game or a web dev company or whatever, and wait for a large enough revenue opportunity that you can incorporate and hire one of those people you got along with. Problem is, the networking at work thing is nearly impossible if you’re as independent as you are. I’d recommend counseling. A therapist and/or career coach. Ideally both.
deltron3030 6y ago
Maybe a normal job that doesn't exhaust you mentally and then a hobby where you can go all in with being unconventional.
epsilonclose 6y ago
I'm going to ignore "being an artist" and "being a writer" and assume you want to work on technical things. I'm also going to ignore academia because that opens a whole new can of worms about what it means to be independent within academia, how to achieve that independence, whether it is worth it, etc. But you should note that I think most people who want to work in the "independent, technical, research-first" mode would traditionally pursue academia. Anyway, examples: Colin Percival runs Tarsnap by himself, and it turns a profit. As another commenter mentioned, there are independent game developers who get to do technically interesting work (e.g. Marc Ten Bosch, who got a SIGGRAPH paper out along the way while making Miegakure, or Jonathan Blow, who is building a programming language [although his team grows and shrinks, so he must be acting in a management capacity, or at least like a film director]). Sylph Bioscience is a lean team of three that seems to me to be doing very interesting work (and I don't think any of them have "traditional" educational backgrounds, though I might be wrong). Matt Keeter works a day job and pumped out a SIGGRAPH paper largely for fun. You can do consulting, freelance, contract work, etc. etc. until you land on what you want. You can start some technical product with the aim to sell it in its entirety ASAP to some other entity (though of course the less work you put in on the "business-bits," the less you'll be selling that product for). It's going to be harder to find these things or make them happen, and often they may not be very financially attractive compared to more standard paths (nor are they necessarily stable), but it seems that autonomy and creative control don't come for free in this life: you have to trade off money, time, stability, and status to do things in this manner.

psysharp 6y ago

Well be can begin with defining leader. Can't you say that a leader is one element of the group who is more intuned to regulate the stress levels of the group, and by having one the group can operate more efficiently? Isn't it infact burden but limitied to a designated element? Not everyone needs to be a leader, isn't that the point of having one? It might just be a completely seperate characteristics from independence

erikpukinskis 6y ago

You can have a small independent business. Buy a backhoe and become and excavator. Learn how to build custom cabinets. You will need to hire people from time to time, but you won’t have to work in concert with anyone 40 hours a week. In software, the best examples I see of that are in video games. Lots of solo developers. Hard to succeed but if you want it enough, the path is clear. There are solo web developers too. But you need to be able to do sales and support. You’re right startups are out because they grow and you’ll find yourself surrounded soon enough. I guess my advice is treat your jobs like daily networking events, try to find people, especially with complementary skill sets, who you like and who like you. Have a side project, a game or a web dev company or whatever, and wait for a large enough revenue opportunity that you can incorporate and hire one of those people you got along with. Problem is, the networking at work thing is nearly impossible if you’re as independent as you are. I’d recommend counseling. A therapist and/or career coach. Ideally both.

deltron3030 6y ago

Maybe a normal job that doesn't exhaust you mentally and then a hobby where you can go all in with being unconventional.

epsilonclose 6y ago

I'm going to ignore "being an artist" and "being a writer" and assume you want to work on technical things. I'm also going to ignore academia because that opens a whole new can of worms about what it means to be independent within academia, how to achieve that independence, whether it is worth it, etc. But you should note that I think most people who want to work in the "independent, technical, research-first" mode would traditionally pursue academia. Anyway, examples: Colin Percival runs Tarsnap by himself, and it turns a profit. As another commenter mentioned, there are independent game developers who get to do technically interesting work (e.g. Marc Ten Bosch, who got a SIGGRAPH paper out along the way while making Miegakure, or Jonathan Blow, who is building a programming language [although his team grows and shrinks, so he must be acting in a management capacity, or at least like a film director]). Sylph Bioscience is a lean team of three that seems to me to be doing very interesting work (and I don't think any of them have "traditional" educational backgrounds, though I might be wrong). Matt Keeter works a day job and pumped out a SIGGRAPH paper largely for fun. You can do consulting, freelance, contract work, etc. etc. until you land on what you want. You can start some technical product with the aim to sell it in its entirety ASAP to some other entity (though of course the less work you put in on the "business-bits," the less you'll be selling that product for). It's going to be harder to find these things or make them happen, and often they may not be very financially attractive compared to more standard paths (nor are they necessarily stable), but it seems that autonomy and creative control don't come for free in this life: you have to trade off money, time, stability, and status to do things in this manner.