31 ms·

Fierce Nerds

• albatruss 5y ago
  If you're going to be this sort of fierce nerd, make sure you come from money, because you're getting fired if you pursue these traits in the workplace.
  • paulpauper 5y ago
    lol have bill gates' parents
  • themodelplumber 5y ago
    Or maybe you keep quitting jobs, because you are the precocious one who can always see why things aren't working well long before anyone else. Yet nobody wants your feedback because it's too something. Too fierce, or scary because it's predictive, or they're just annoyed that you have no social skills. And socially maybe the people at work can keep you in check without firing you, because you can't respond well in a socially-clever environment for example, no matter how amazing your insights.
  • dreyfan 5y ago
    Assuming those traits come alongside the ability to get shit done, that’s patently false.
  • wutbrodo 5y ago
    FWIW, this isn't my experience at all. There's a difference between being an asshole and the contrarian bent+ relatively-minor rough edges Graham describes. The essay touches on this, by saying that it's become a lot easier to thrive as this sort of person than it used to be. In particular, you need to find your way to a field and role where results matter more than glad-handing and ego-stroking, and where the subjectivity and discretion of measuring those results is minimized. This used to be vanishingly rare, but in my perception (and experience), it no longer is. In my case, my fatal flaw career-wise wasn't abrasiveness or asshole-ish behavior, but a strong aversion to promoting my work or any of the other non-goal tasks required to advance in an organization. I hate every minute I have to spend making it clear that I'm productive instead of just _being_ productive. However, this is almost unavoidable in most organizations that aren't tiny. You either have to "manage your brand" and play politics, or you have to make sure that you're fitting a squishy, inherently-subjective rubric. At a bare minimum, you need to craft a presentation of your output at performance review time, and hope your interpretation of the rubric matches the decision-makers'. My solution was to find a company with fairly objective and well-defined measures of output[1], where there's more than enough impact to go around. You can't avoid having people skills to get things done, but I don't mind using my people skills in service of getting shit done instead of internal organizational BS. [1] This does not mean that we're tolerant of assholes. We've fired people for being pathological "brilliant jerks", though everyone I've come into close personal contact with is well above the jerk bar. What this does is separate "are you toxic in a way that hurts your coworkers or the company" from "what is your output", allowing people who are awkward and well-intentioned to thrive on one axis and grow on the other. This is in contrast to the usual case, where measuring output is polluted by interpersonal skills that are not related to output, and being awkward means your work isn't recognized either.
    • slfnflctd 5y ago
      > measuring output is polluted by interpersonal skills Also, many of those 'skills' are nothing more than shared cultural backgrounds and/or biases.
      • version_five 5y ago
        This is exactly what the original essay said: > It's hard to be independent-minded without being somewhat socially awkward, because conventional beliefs are so often mistaken, or at least arbitrary. No one who was both independent-minded and ambitious would want to waste the effort it takes to fit in
• strict9 5y ago
  With descriptions of social clumsiness, being independent minded, and difficulty navigating two-way communication (when to start/stop) pg's depiction of "nerds" resonates because these traits are frequently associated with asd. But what surprised me is that instead of washing away negative traits as part of the package, two options for the "fierce nerd" are presented: 1. use power for good 2. be cynical and embrace bitterness It's a lot easier to do #2 than #1.
  • mcguire 5y ago
    Can you point me to where "for good" is mentioned in the essay? The only end goal I remember is getting wealthy.
• davidhunter 5y ago
  Although questionable as a psychometric test, he is describing the Myers–Briggs INTJ [1] or INTP [2] personality type here. In terms of the Big-Five [3], I would suggest: Moderately-high Openness, High Conscientiousness, Average-to-Low Extraversion, Low Agreeableness, Average-to-low Neuroticism. [1]: https://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality https://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality [2]: https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
  • carlisle_ 5y ago
    >Although questionable as a psychometric test That's an understatement. It's meritless pseudoscience.
    • fraud 5y ago
      What makes you say so?
      • sn9 5y ago
        Probably an awareness of the history of MB and the research about its utility: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personali...
        • davidhunter 5y ago
          All models are wrong, but some are useful. I have found the MBTI to be useful despite the empirical inaccuracy of the test itself. Even without taking the test, people can self-identify as one (or more) types. This then serves as a meaningful basis for discussion as well as raising awareness that people are deeply different in terms of their ways of thinking. It is quite an eye opener the first time you see someone self-identify as a personality type that is very different to your own. None of the personality theories are 'proven' of course. We won't get that until we have a fuller understanding of the brain. But it is well accepted within psychology that personality is a thing. And personality types (Big 5, MBTI, etc) are useful models for now despite their shortcomings. This is a fairly good post with some additional thoughts on the MBTI debate: https://dynomight.net/in-defense-of-myers-briggs.html https://dynomight.net/in-defense-of-myers-briggs.html
• mikece 5y ago
  I can't help thinking that "fierce nerd" and Asperger syndrome go together. There will be some random Steve Jobs assholes as well but I think they are the exception.
  • vbsteven 5y ago
    Exactly my thoughts as well. Almost all fierce nerd traits PG describes are signs typically seen in Asperger/ASD/Gifted. I recognise myself in the article, as well as a number of my friends/colleagues who are all diagnosed with one or more of the above.
• question000 5y ago
  This feels weirdly like someone working out emotional issues by describing them in an emotionally distant "rational" way. Like what does this have to do with anything other then the thoughts in Paul Grahams head?
  • mdorazio 5y ago
    Nothing. PG's recent writing has increasingly been for no one other than PG, which is fine. I just wish it didn't always get upvoted on HN.
  • s_kilk 5y ago
    It's a classic refrain in a petty "revenge of the nerds" mindset. All the "haters" are wrong, unconditionally, and acting like an asshole is excused as being very special and brave. It's a siege mentality designed to shore up one's sense of superiority, and ensure that one doesn't need to do very much soul-searching.
  • Edman274 5y ago
    When you have to justify to yourself why you're a millionaire or a billionaire and "dumb luck, some modicum of skill, and being first" isn't a satisfying reason, you have to rationalize to yourself that you deserve it because you've got something that those ivory-tower eggheads and non-nerdy simpletons don't. And that thing is fierceness. I've never seen a blog post more worthy of a good old fashioned fisking. I mean come on - "confidence is a self-fullfilling prophecy" - are we being serious here? It's only self-fulfilling because of survivorship bias. Maybe he's running with a crew of super successful founders and that's true, but from my point of view, I remember the dudes at my place of work that could very confidently talk my ear off about something that they half-understood (or very confidently describe an unworkable solution to a problem) and then got fired a month later because they weren't productive enough to meet even the super-low requirements of software development at a car insurance company. It's easy to spin narratives about confidence and restlessness and intelligence when you've surrounded yourself with the winners. Less visible are the people who go all-in on a fintech startup and end up broke a year later. Those people have all the same traits and end up in the same boat as all the other un-fierce nerds.
  • 5y ago
• CoastalCoder 5y ago
  > Fierce nerds also tend to be somewhat overconfident, especially when young. I wonder if that statement is overly specific. AFAIK, young people in general, or at least young men in general, have a reputation for being overconfident.
  • bilbo0s 5y ago
    It's a fact that all humans are overconfident. That's why we have biases that make us confident in what we "know", and make us reject information to the contrary even if the information is factually accurate. The overconfidence is not a trait endemic only to male "nerds". Of course, it's still helpful to concede that humans should recognize and be aware of that weakness in themselves. Overconfidence is the reason so many spend the healthy end years of their lives so much less well off financially than they spent their healthy prime years. It behooves us all to be on guard against our overconfidence.
  • capableweb 5y ago
    Maybe it's because I'm living in a latino country, but it certainly seems like men start with too much confidence since teenage years, and slowly brings it down so everyone stop calling them arrogant, then there is their appropriate level. While for females (again, at least here in this latino country) it's the opposite, they start off being super humble and careful, and while growing up gaining more and more confidence until finding the right level. Of course, this is a broad generalization, but seems to fit where I'm living right now, but it's all anecdotal as it's based on my own perceived view of things of course.
    • Der_Einzige 5y ago
      Sounds right in line with my experiences and exposure to the "Machismo" portions of many Latino cultures. I always brought this up to my far leftist friends who tried to pretend that the cuban revolution was somehow good for the LGBT minority of Cuba. LOL you think that they abandoned machismo just because they got a hammer and sickle? They call queerness "capitalist decadence" there...
• HDMI_Cable 5y ago
  Does anyone else feel sort of weird when Paul Graham talks about nerds? It feels like he's trying to deal with something on his end, and we're just watching him rationalize to himself.
  • spamizbad 5y ago
    I feel like the Gen-X terminology of a nerd just isn't a thing anymore. Being an older millennial, I fully understand what sort of person Graham is talking about, however I don't think Zoomers or even younger Millennials would describe these people as "nerds". Also, these days if you are a smart ambitious person looking to make an impact with technology you're not terribly edgy and you certainly aren't defying any major social norms. And that's a good thing.
    • jbverschoor 5y ago
      Yeah that view is simply not here anymore. Thankfully
    • zug_zug 5y ago
      So what would the modern generation call somebody like this: In 9th grade insists "I don't see the point of these classes I'm going to be a programmer," takes AP comp sci as sophmore finds it insultingly easy [gets in trouble for going ahead of teacher], resents homework vocally and refuses to do it on principle but still gets great scores on tests, places in the school math competition but initially gets kicked out of the award ceremony for refusing for the "National Honor Society" performance, 12-grade gets official permission to work half-time coding and only take half classes. That's what I was, and I don't think anybody else has ever given me a word for it. I knew pedantic nerds, and intense nerds, and condescending nerds, but few with real conviction.
      • spamizbad 5y ago
        This sounds exactly like one of my friends in high school. He was not considered a nerd though. However, he had decent social skills, had a girlfriend, etc. Incidentally, he went on to found several companies!
• scythe 5y ago
  >Fierce nerds also tend to be somewhat overconfident, especially when young. It might seem like it would be a disadvantage to be mistaken about one's abilities, but empirically it isn't. Up to a point, confidence is a self-fullfilling prophecy. As a child I was mathematically precocious and often (to myself) compared my modest accomplishments to stories of prodigies like Gauss or von Neumann. Looking back it seems patently ridiculous, but I might not have spent dozens of hours per week reading math textbooks and Wikipedia if I had had a more realistic self-perception. I can't say I regret it.
  • Konohamaru 5y ago
    You are getting smarter and smarter every day and in every way.
• CoastalCoder 5y ago
  Nobody who knows me would call me "woke", except as part of some joke. But as the father of a kid with Asperger Syndrome, and as someone with a likely diagnosis myself (according to neuropysch testing), I'm a little bothered by the broad brush with which P.G. is painting.
  • moolcool 5y ago
    +1, and with all due respect to PG's technical background, reductive and stereotyping pieces like this kind of feel like he's looking at the people who thrust him into his lofty VC position with contempt.
    • waheoo 5y ago
      I can sort of get over all that, I'm not going to sit here and take it personally because I know it's just broad strokes, but at the same time, if it is broad strokes, there is nothing to be gained here because nothing is factual and everything can be dismissed because it is too general. If he focused on something more defined than a vague and derogatory term for smart people in general heay have had something worth reading. Ps. Seriously, why is the grey subtext so hard to read? Stop with grey text. Please.
  • jack_riminton 5y ago
    As someone who is in the same boat, I think it'd be fair to say PG is too
  • jfengel 5y ago
    Umm... just so ya know, practically everything in "wokeness" is about somebody saying "Please don't paint me with the broad brush you're using." I think most of what you identify as "wokeness" is other people who aren't directly affected trying to help out, since the affected people are usually a minority who won't be heard if it's just them. That can lead to its own forms of tone-deafness and "you're not helping" behavior, but that just leads to more cases of people who are sincerely and effectively helping being dismissed as "SJWs" out of hand. That's a cheap way of avoiding genuine problems with one tiny all-purpose acronym. I just wanted to point that out because what you wrote can be read like "I didn't care about anything except when it happens to me". It might give you a moment's pause the next time you want to deride something as "woke".
• whalesalad 5y ago
  This is top tier cringe. I can’t read his stuff any more at all.
  • waterside81 5y ago
    Try reading his Twitter feed. He went from VC visionary to Facebook mom.
    • whalesalad 5y ago
      I intentionally avoid SV/Tech/VC on Twitter. It’s a parody at this point.
      • fumar 5y ago
        I’ve witnessed music scenes come and go. It wasn’t until recently I noticed the startup culture or visible ethos, at least online, morphed into something new. Perhaps like music we are seeing new trends evolve or we are in a transition phase where the new culture leaders are yet to emerge. But, PG is like alternative rock in in 2020 and beyond, out of style.
• zzzeek 5y ago
  > Another solution may be to somehow turn off your fierceness, by devoting yourself to meditation or psychotherapy or something like that. Maybe that's the right answer for some people. I have no idea. I do, and I think you should invest in these things (not "devote your life", PG shows his deep ignorance here of these things as though they are black and white). if you are in the overwhelming vast majority of "fierce nerds" that does not become a billionaire, or even if you do, you will invariably have a lot of problems in social situations and close relationships until some investment is made in tempering this extreme sort of personality. > But it doesn't seem the optimal solution to me. If you're given a sharp knife, it seems to me better to use it than to blunt its edge to avoid cutting yourself. PG encouraging people to be emotionally unhealthy so that they can add to his pool of talent for him to profit from. The fierce nerd, great term btw, is ambitious and brilliant. they can do all of these things at the same time. It might just cut down the full on "become a billionaire" mindset, but that's a good thing, since it's unethical to be a billionaire.
  • npunt 5y ago
    Yeah this part was especially disappointing given pg's influence, and I think this is one of his weaker essays because the advice is not well thought out. If you have a chip on your shoulder, are insufferable, can't shut off aggressiveness, etc, the best thing you can do is learn when and how to channel it. That's the missing piece. I know a lot of people that fit this mold, and for this type of personality there's nothing that will meaningfully dull the edge [1]. But, if they learn how to control it, they can avoid cutting their friends and themselves, and live a much happier life. The last thing this world needs is more emotionally stunted leaders alone in their suffering. [1] This point in particular seemed like pg engaging in pure speculation, not something based on specific examples
• pattusk 5y ago
  > Most people think of nerds as quiet, diffident people. [...] In fact some nerds are quite fierce. That someone would think nerds are not competitive is, to me, the strangest thing about this article. Perhaps because I'm one, but whether it's Magic the gathering, Demoparties, rubics cube solving, chess, Counterstrike LANs, academia, or any of my tech jobs, every "nerdy" activity I've ever engaged with has always been overly competitive. The fact that so many open source projects have had to adopt "code of conducts" is IMO a direct reflection of the fierce competition that has always been inherent to software development. Whether it's code quality, clever hacks, optimization... everything about what we do has a competitive element. Come to think of it, I can't actually think of any nerdy activity that isn't, in practice, extremely competitive.
  • knicholes 5y ago
    Collecting comic books? Memorizing all the Star Wars and Star Trek quotes, and reading side fan fictions about each of the characters?
    • mycologos 5y ago
      Eh, pedantry is a form of competitiveness, and all of these activities seem to foster pedantry (e.g. "that's not part of this canon!").
      • watwut 5y ago
        That way everything is competitive. Pedantry does not have to be competitive at all.
        • mycologos 5y ago
          I think pedantry is often a way of asserting status ("I know this thing, you don't"), though I agree it doesn't intrinsically have to be.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• MyHypatia 5y ago
  I met a lot of nerds in graduate school. In my experience the "fierce" nerds weren't smarter or successful than the "nonfierce" nerds. The fierce nerds were just more insecure and emotionally immature. They felt more threatened by being surrounded by other people who might smarter or more successful than them. It threatened their identity of being uniquely intelligent. They responded by lashing out. It may be that this source of insecurity is a driving force. But years later, when I see who is more successful I think it is the nonfierce nerds. The fierce nerds exhausted themselves with petty disagreements and arbitrary hills to die on. The nonfierce nerds were able to focus on the hills worth climbing and recruit others to work with them.
  • automatic6131 5y ago
    As someone who feels like this description of "fierce nerd" applies to themselves, I'd agree. I'm clever, but not particularly so. And I'm not particularly successful either. And my abrasiveness has lost me many friendships and relationships over the years too. Perhaps it's a flattener of the bellcurve of success. If you only look at the right hand side you will see lots of fierce nerds. But you aren't seeing the many, many more who are just ordinary, annoying assholes.
  • xondono 5y ago
    Maybe it’s me, but I think “fierce” has thrown a lot of people off. I would classify what you are describing as what PG terms “the bitter nerds”, not necessarily “fierce”.
    • mcguire 5y ago
      As Graham says, the difference between fierce and bitter is success. And given that, in a very competitive environment, the difference between success and failure is largely luck...
  • NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    I heavily disagree. Any fierce nerd ive known all know they are VERY good at what they do (in terms of some intellectual persuit) and know how to assert themselves
• helen___keller 5y ago
  I enjoy reading Paul Graham's musings on nerds / nerdiness, but I can't help but have difficulty relating. Maybe it's a generational thing (born in '92), but Graham often seems to paint a picture of nerds similar to what you might see in movies and TV shows depicting the 80s, like the kids in Stranger Things. Even this article, while I can certainly conjure which of my friends growing up were the "fierce nerd", it still feels a little disconnected from my reality. For example, Graham begins by explaining that the concept of a fierce nerd is one unknown to the general public. But I'm not sure I agree. In the era I grew up, there was not so much social distinction between who is a nerd, but there was a lot of social distinction for those who were argumentative, or "fierce". In my experience, everyone knew who the "fierce nerds" were (although not by that name), because they were known for their awkwardness and combativeness - not for their nerdiness. Indeed, my own nerdy friend circle in high school spanned a wide range of popularities and I would say "fierceness" (or rather, lack thereof) was probably the best indicator of popularity. I see these themes spanning Graham's other musings on nerds, typically trying to characterize a class of kids who are hated for their interests and passions, but that's just never been my experience. I think it's a generational thing.
  • HeyImAlex 5y ago
    Same, born in 92 and his characterization of being nerdy and young seems super antiquated. “Nerdy” interests don’t make you a social pariah, they transcend groupings all together; the star quarterback plays dnd, the head cheerleader builds robots in her basement, the stigma on having unique or “nerdy” hobbies and interests is mostly gone. When I think of what PG is describing, it’s characterized by poor social skills and bad hygiene.
    • dugmartin 5y ago
      I can tell you as someone that graduated college in 92 that being nerdy as a kid in the 70s/80s it was very different from that, at least in my area of the world (Midwest USA). If you want a not very distorted glimpse of what it was like watch the movie, "Revenge of the Nerds".
• bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  >As the world progresses, the number of things you can win at by getting the right answer increases. Either that or in history there are certain junction points in which a number of hard problems arise and if you are good at solving hard problems at that point you are going to do well for yourself. After which there is a period of consolidation until the next rise of hard problems. Probably Mr. Graham wouldn't like to consider that idea though.
• shmageggy 5y ago
  I don't see the point in inventing some arbitrary social category, when it's only backed by what seems like little more than speculative drivel. > Another solution may be to somehow turn off your fierceness, by devoting yourself to meditation... Huh? Lots of highly successful and effective people (who he would probably call fierce) cite meditation as a crucial tool for increasing their focus and mental discipline. This is just a bizarre take.
• nashashmi 5y ago
  > The bad news is that if it's not exercised, your fierceness will turn to bitterness, and you will become an intellectual playground bully: the grumpy sysadmin, the forum troll, the hater, the shooter down of new ideas. Can’t stress this enough. Some reach for what others have. Others reach for what they need but get trolled into thinking they have nothing and start reaching for what others have. This is the equation for misery. And the opposite is the equation for success. But I admit this is just one dimension and datum on the look of life.
• AS_of 5y ago
  This was not too bad considering PGs latest writings, which have been various degrees of underwhelming and tone deaf. This is like, at least, a rally call or something. But I'm just a bitter forum troll so...
• moolcool 5y ago
  This article reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes to college and expects it to be exactly like Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds.
• Communitivity 5y ago
  Expertise with people, technology, and finances could be view as three legs of a startup. Each has their own form of fierceness. As a casual observer, it seems to me that the ideal founder formula is a fierce networker/marketer, a fierce nerd, and a fierce businessperson.
• shalmanese 5y ago
  PG gets dunked on on Twitter for defending Antonio Garcia Martinez but he knows he's right even though everyone is making fun of him so his natural defense mechanism is to go back and create an elaborate framework to prove he's right and it's just that nobody else can see he's right. You see, AGM isn't a misanthrope misogynist, he's fierce! He says the things everyone else is afraid to say and thinks the things everyone else is too afraid to think because he's an Unconventional Thinker (TM). Everyone else is simply just too threatened to acknowledge this and that's why they're bullying PG.
  • zozbot234 5y ago
    For anyone who isn't currently on Twitter, AGM is the guy who publicly called Bay Area women "soft, weak and full of $#!+" and was recently canned from a management role at Apple when people pointed out that his performance assessments of subordinates might not be free from bias. Sucks to be him of course, but what's the alternative?
    • def_true_false 5y ago
      > Sucks to be him of course, but what's the alternative? Uh, not firing people over Twitter drama? I swear America is getting more insane by the day. It's even more obvious if you take a break from social network sites and then come back after a while.
      • zozbot234 5y ago
        This wasn't even Twitter drama. He wrote that in a published book, that then went on and on and on demeaning women in all sorts of "fun" ways (i.e. this isn't a single throwaway statement that might be misunderstood; the misogyny is core to what he was saying). His girlfriend is "special" of course, but he still manages to say very not-nice things about her.
        • def_true_false 5y ago
          The book is like 5 years old... So, why now? Because of Twitter drama? Edit: Well, it seems that, according to Wikipedia, the impetus might have been an article in tech media (which seems to mean anti-tech media these days).
• javajosh 5y ago
  The first rush of comments are all negative, mostly of the ad hominem sort, accusing PG of publicly psychoanalyzing himself. And yet, I really liked the essay because it reads like a lifeline to those who doubt themselves, perhaps profoundly. To PG the same qualities that alienate a "fierce nerd" in so many contexts are precisely the same qualities that could lead to success (even dominance) in other contexts. The useful follow on to this essay, I would think, is to give a list, as long as possible, of places where "fierce nerds" are wanted, demanded, needed - both well-known institutions and startups. Another useful follow up would be to give better advice about achieving harmony. Everyone deserves peace; to put it another way, progress that requires a human to sacrifice love isn't worth making.
  • moolcool 5y ago
    >The useful follow on to this essay, I would think, is to give a list, as long as possible, of places where "fierce nerds" are wanted, demanded, needed - both well-known institutions and startups. "How to Deal with Difficult People on Software Projects" is a pretty good read in this vain https://neilonsoftware.com/difficult-people-on-software-projects/ https://neilonsoftware.com/difficult-people-on-software-proj...
    • yosito 5y ago
      This article promises "how to deal", but all it delivers is a list of difficult stereotypes, prefaced by reasons you are not allowed to disagree with the stereotypes, and never discusses how to deal with them.
  • Bukhmanizer 5y ago
    > And yet, I really liked the essay because it reads like a lifeline to those who doubt themselves, perhaps profoundly Do they? I mean one of the define characteristics is an overconfidence in themselves. I think PG is trying to justify some kind of assholish behaviour in his past by reframing it as a virtue. Really, I think the “fierceness” is incidental. Do immensely successful people need to be somewhat competitive? Sure. Do they have to interrupt everyone, lack social awareness, etc? Probably not.
• graderjs 5y ago
  Somewhere in a secluded underground luxury bunker, Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin, Larry Edward Page and Bill Henry Gates are fiercely nodding their heads in agreement. ;p ;) xx
• miobrien 5y ago
  It's weird to read an "essay" about "nerds" from a 56 year old. It's like he never got over the high school caste system of cliques.
  • woeIsPG 5y ago
    Pretty sure a lot of people’s brains broke given Trump, environment, and coronavirus. The veil was lifted. A whole lot of the late Boomer, and Gen X are halfway to the end, realizing it wasn’t magic, and seeing sentiment for their efforts turn on them. I’ve seen a number of folks, 40-60, meltdown over the last 2-3 years. Most of my 20-30 something acquaintances have weathered it well. The older class though, has really been hit by reality not being as easily bent to their will given the virus, and sentiment turning against their generation acting as helicopter parents to society.
  • bob33212 5y ago
    I think it relates to how he grew up in an unfragmented society. He talks about it here. http://www.paulgraham.com/re.html http://www.paulgraham.com/re.html It applies to a lot of what is happening in society today.
  • johnthealy3 5y ago
    To be fair, this man's job was to identify the type of person who is likely to succeed at startups, and by most accounts he was very successful at it. Understanding personality traits and how they relate to the people you're looking for has felt critically important as I work on my startup. It has come up over and over again in hiring (including MANY more inbound, exploratory conversations than I would have expected) and in client management (identifying the best point of contact on their side, but also keeping clients on track and responsive during an onboard).
  • NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    I dont understand. He grew up as a teen during the age of D&D and core scifi/nerd culture. How is not qualified to speak of this stuff?
    • 5y ago
• jt2190 5y ago
  [Here's my best summary of what a "fierce nerd" is, according to this essay] Most non-nerds think of nerds as: * quiet * diffident In fact some nerds are quite fierce. "Fierce nerds" are: * small group [subset of nerds overall?] * more competitive than highly competitive non-nerds * competition is more personal for them; they're not emotionally mature enough to distance themselves personally from competition * work in areas that are less random in the kinds of competition they engage in [no points for persuasion or style, I suppose] * somewhat overconfident, especially when young * intelligent, at least moderately so * independent-mindeded, see fitting it as wasted effort * annoyed by rules * impatient, not sure why [I'll let you draw your own conclusions.]
• teachingassist 5y ago
  Using James Watson as an example is an interesting choice. When I think of James Watson, I think of someone who a) stole his major work (the one thing for which he is famous) from a woman without giving credit, and b) has been almost-literally cancelled for being consistently racist, also by his colleague-science-nerds who consistently report that they don't like him. Not someone that I want to celebrate for being a 'fierce nerd'.
  • educationcto 5y ago
    What an example to choose the same week that Paul is out defending Antonio Garcia Martinez's sexism on Twitter.
    • zip1234 5y ago
      I didn't see it as defending sexism. It was more pointing out the hypocrisy of Apple for firing Martinez while selling and promoting 'Beats by Dre'. In both cases the creative works were well-known before the hire/acquisition.
      • The5thElephant 5y ago
        Which is a poor critique considering Martinez would be working directly with other Apple employees while Dre is barely involved with Apple as far as I know. The issue isn't the creative work alone, the issue is the impact on fellow employees and the working environment.
      • deanCommie 5y ago
        Pointing out that hypocrisy is a strategy some took with criticizing Apple, but it's not the direction PG chose. [1] He said nothing about Dre, focusing entirely on saying "He's a good guy, actually", which is the epitome of the strategy taken by men historically to defend other shitty men. That's not "defending sexism" per se, but it is excusing sexism because of the content of someone's character. "Sure he said sexist things but he is not sexist". It does not pass even the most baseline level of scrutiny. I think it's also worth saying here that the comparison to Dre is super irrelevant: 1) Musicians may write lyrics in the first person, but the general default for all musical content is it's "fictional", and not representive of their personal views on the matter. It's artistic license with ideas - occasionally problematic. That is not the case with "autobiographies", which is what Antonio's book was purported to be. 2) Dre has taken complete ownership of all of his past indiscretions and apologized for them [2]. Antonio double down. [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1392756490138791937 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1392756490138791937 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Violence_against_women https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Violence_against_women
• 1cvmask 5y ago
  I think we should confine this to the primarily US setting (and maybe parts of the English speaking world like Canada). In most of the rest of the world being top in academics is expected from everyone especially to pass standardized tests (the only way in many countries) to get into universities. The poor outnerd the rich fiercely so that they can step up. The rich try to nerd so that they can maintain their privilege. There are no secret backdoors (like athletics) for the rich in the public schooling and university realm that exist in most of these countries. In essence everyone is a nerd or trying to be a nerd. In the US system, one could make the argument that elite legacies and the fencing team help the manufactured diversity and lower the “nerd” (achievement oriented) “toxicity.”. A study abroad for just a semester would be an eye-opener for many of us on the normalcy of nerdness in many societies. Most parents hope their kids become doctors, engineers etc.
  • goldenchrome 5y ago
    I think what you're describing is undergraduates. In the US we don't typically say that undergraduates are academics. Usually, people who are academics will complete a masters and/or PhD where they do independent study and publish a thesis. Afterwards, many of them hope to stay in academia for life, or continue their work as a researcher in a private organization. Academics have to go through undergraduate programs too, but most non-academics end their education with a bachelor's degree simply to help them get a (typically) non-nerdy job. Other countries have students who study harder than Americans, for sure. As someone with a multi-ethnic background, I find that students in lesser developed countries have fewer options in their future so they study hard as a student for the chance to make it out of poverty. Students in highly developed nations don't worry as much because they think they have a decent standard of living waiting for them regardless. I don't think that (for example) India has dramatically more nerds than (for example) America because being a nerd is driven by your personality. Nerds genuinely enjoy studying <x> in particular and they find ways to do just that. Nerds can end up as doctors or engineers but typically nerds aren't primarily motivated by careers. I think you notice this difference in the wide prevalence of cheating in poorer countries. Non-nerds feel the pressure to study but they're not actually interested in the work so they cheat to get by. Cheating exists in America too, but there's less risk of falling into poverty so students who aren't interested in a subject will more often accept a low passing grade.
• Nasrudith 5y ago
  The success and bitterness footnote seems very off. In my experience and observations bitterness seems to be more driven by "scarring" than current success. A bad situation doesn't help but a good one is no antidote. There is the "one who made it out" archetype for one example. The kind who left a very unsuccessful community and have even less sympathy for them than those taking a priveledged background for granted.
• oreally 5y ago
  That's a pretty good description, and many of the posts here are about fierce nerds with petty issues which I think the essay is not about. I've grown into that fierce nerd. Being in forced conscription in my 20s has made me wary of the 'wait to rush for nothing meaningful' culture. Then I joined companies and it feels like a ton of my time is wasted by processes, norms and ideologies. I did break out once to try and make a business but that hasn't worked out. So now I'm in employment just to earn/invest to have enough for a certain level of financial independence and I'm feeling that bitterness rise up again. I'm very likely destined to burn out of industries/companies that aren't my own quickly, and this could cascade into bad looking resumes. It feels like a do or die situation sometimes.
  • ziggus 5y ago
    "...a ton of my time is wasted by processes, norms and ideologies." So, all the stuff that helps society function?
    • oreally 5y ago
      Have you done mine prodding drills over 50 square meter fields? Sure it'll fulfill some superior's KPI but it's not very useful nowadays with all that modern military equipment. A good majority of these prescribed processes, norms and ideologies just aren't useful in the individual's growth.
      • jfengel 5y ago
        Sounds like an excellent analogy: "We've been doing all these mine-detecting drills, but nobody ever gets blown up. We should stop doing mine-detecting drills." It's wise to take advantage of changes, but it's also wise to ensure that you're not taking down Chesterton's Fence[1] without knowing why the fence was put up. Some processes, norms, and ideologies exist for reasons that aren't obvious. It's often not difficult to find somebody to explain them to you, but you have to be prepared to genuinely listen to the answer. It's easy to be impatient when you see them as getting in your way, and the first explanation you get may not actually be a very good one. (If you don't know why the fence was put up there's a good chance others won't either -- but that doesn't mean that an unsatisfactory explanation implies that there isn't a satisfactory one.) That does slow you down, and that's hard when you're not the one who gets harmed by violating those norms, processes, and ideologies. But that doesn't mean nobody gets hurt, and such harms have a way of making society around you worse though mechanisms you don't see -- even though they do end up affecting you, too, eventually. [1] https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence
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• soheil 5y ago
  > 7 of the 8 richest people in America are now fierce nerds I wonder if he's counting Warren Buffet as a fierce nerd, I would.
  • TigeriusKirk 5y ago
    He replied to a Twitter comment saying he doesn't. He said he didn't know anyone who knew Buffet well enough to say.
    • soheil 5y ago
      Maybe just a nerd then.
• iafiaf 5y ago
  > The bad news is that if it's not exercised, your fierceness will turn to bitterness, and you will become an intellectual playground bully: the grumpy sysadmin, the forum troll, the hater, the shooter down of new ideas. I like this.
  • morelisp 5y ago
    It's just a twist on prosperity gospel, a way to a priori dismiss anyone who disagrees with him as a bitter bully.
• paulpauper 5y ago
  This whole things feels autobiographical I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that your fierceness will be a great help in solving difficult problems. And not just the kind of scientific and technical problems that nerds have traditionally solved. As the world progresses, the number of things you can win at by getting the right answer increases. Recently getting rich became one of them: 7 of the 8 richest people in America are now fierce nerds. starting one of the 10 most successful businesses of the past 2-4 decades business vs solving a problem are not the same thing though. Problem solvers on average do not make that much money. Look at all the problems solved everyday on stack overflow/exchange. How many of those ppl are making lots of money. Same for freelancing sites. The rates are pretty low. making money means a lot to PG, but it's a separate type of skill than solving problems. It is something that is probably harder in many respects because it requires not only solving problems but making money from it, which means competition and other aspects of business.
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• carapace 5y ago
  To young "fierce nerds": The single best piece of advice I got for dealing with normals was, "Act like a dumbass and they'll treat you like an equal." (from the Book of the Subgenius.) - - - - There's a lot to unpack in this essay, some good some bad IMO. One thing I feel is worth mentioning: I don't think the cure for bitterness is success, I believe it's helping others.
  • username90 5y ago
    Trying to help others just makes you more bitter.
    • mhh__ 5y ago
      It might do for you, and I'd say it does for me a little too (i.e. If I get the answer in less than one google search I need to take a breather because I'll get annoyed), but I have come across people who are just as clever/nerdy/knowledgeable (take your pick) who really derive pleasure from teaching and explaining things in the best way they can - so I wouldn't assume.
    • nitrogen 5y ago
      Particularly so when placed into a position where help is expected, but then immediately rejected once delivered. It's the sort of double bind that makes for a toxic environment -- you must assist others; if you don't, you will be accused of hindering and hoarding, but if you do (no matter how generously, politely, and tactfully) you will be accused of patronizing or interfering.
    • carapace 5y ago
      How?
  • mhh__ 5y ago
    Also don't call them normals.
    • wincy 5y ago
      I believe the socially acceptable term these days is "normies", right?
• femiagbabiaka 5y ago
  Very good. One thing I’m surprised wasn’t mentioned (or at least I didn’t catch on the first read) — IMO, on average, this kind of person will have much better experiences on the bitterness to invigoration spectrum at startups vs. bigco.
• airhead969 5y ago
  Impatience due to rules not applying to them. And delay is often some form of BS. "Strategic" impatience when patience encourages faster results. (Manipulating people on the highway to drive faster or change lanes through various techniques.) Nothing precludes actual fierceness rather than strictly fitting to an archetype. I used to illegally street race for cash. I can detail strip most Glocks, ARs, and AKs, and fire each without occluded aiming. Grandfathers were both competition military wheel gun marksmen. There are such people as nerdy bodybuilders. I took the SAT-I without any preparation (absolutely zero) and aced the math section, 5 on AP Calc BC with minimal preparation at school; no coaches, no practice tests, and no bootcamp classes after school. My school was supposed to be good but it sucked in one particular way as it picked me through testing to represent a math tournament but sent me completely unprepared in the fields and subject matter, it was embarrassing. I was usually the lone white dude amongst mostly Asian and Indian overachievers who had rich af parents with every sort of coach and social help. I road a steel-framed bicycle to school 4 miles each way everyday, they had hand-me-down BMWs and Mercedes parked in the school parking lot. The other issue is like BUD/S and specops, the people told they couldn't or were unsuited also tend to be the ones with the most heart. Someone can't wish to be more fluidly-intelligent, but they can become more relentlessly-resourceful and dog-with-a-bone. Wisdom, experience, and mastery trends to swamp raw intelligence as someone ages... plus, fluid intelligence tends to decline.
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  • mcguire 5y ago
    Nice flex.
• KaiserPro 5y ago
  > The fierce nerds are a small but interesting group. If by interesting you mean "humorless bellend", then yes, I agree wholeheartedly.
  • sudosteph 5y ago
    Only the boring ones are humorless. I actually think most decent satirists would match up to the fierce nerd persona pretty well. Voltaire comes to mind.
    • KaiserPro 5y ago
      I would dearly love to find one that does come even close to voltaire. At the moment we are crammed full of Thomas Paines without the social or washing skills.
      • sudosteph 5y ago
        Hah! You sure you aren't going after Voltaire's mantle yourself?
        • KaiserPro 5y ago
          I'd need to be much better read for that :)
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• dncornholio 5y ago
  If you don't let the word nerd affect you with bad feelings, the post is pretty OK. I don't think nerd is a bad thing to say anymore. Also I can identify me with this personality. Last few years I can find myself turning more into bitterness and I just started realising that the cause is not external.
  • eplanit 5y ago
    I like to be clear and differentiate between "dorks" and "nerds". Dorks are insufferable by definition. Nerds might sometimes act like dorks (ex: talking about bitcoin throughout a dinner), but nerds have, on balance, more redeeming qualities than the dork. There is a lot of overlap in the definition of the two[1][2]. I don't hear "dork" used much anymore -- it should be used more. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dork https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dork [2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nerd https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nerd
• stephc_int13 5y ago
  So, this is the second installment of Paul Graham's analysis of the various unwelcoming reactions to the MightyApp announcement a few weeks ago. Especially the last part. He is not completely wrong, but also visibly bitter.
  • waheoo 5y ago
    Someone made an app / service that remote desktops chrome on a server to avoid the bloat? Instead of using Firefox? Was that an April fools?
    • stephc_int13 5y ago
      Nah, this is the future of Internet, according to PG :)
      • waheoo 5y ago
        Lol. Smells like thin clients of the early naughties.
    • moshmosh 5y ago
      The punchline was that, IIRC, it's an Electron app. Also PG and others were evidently very upset that, aside from just laughing at the obvious humor of the situation, lots people expressed wishes—for a bunch of reasons; e.g its most viable business models all seem to involve spying or other shady behavior; it's just a bad sign for where the Web is at so it would be sad to see that become normal—that the company doesn't do very well.
      • stephc_int13 5y ago
        I was modestly part of the haters, with a few more vocal and visible guys such as Jonathan Blow or Casey Muratori. Fierce Nerds :)
• Bukhmanizer 5y ago
  A lot of this essay feels a lot like cold reading of tech workers. PG brings up the 8 richest people in America, but if you look at the top like 10-15, the VAST majority are tech CEOs. So that’s who we’re talking about here. First, “independent-mindedness”. I’m guessing that if you survey people, approximately 95% of people would consider themselves “independent-minded”. Then he talks about social awkwardness and intelligence. I would say about 90% of tech workers would consider themselves both of those things. And competitiveness? Probably any CEO could be considered somewhat competitive. Just to succeed at that scale probably requires some competitiveness.
  • nindalf 5y ago
    Almost anyone reading this would think "oh wow, he's talking about me!" Like you point out, his criteria and statements are vague enough that anyone would think it applies to them. Such only need to follow PG's advice - be "fierce", ie, be an asshole to people to get ahead.
    • whatshisface 5y ago
      Nobody is going to change their basic personality because of an essay they read online. I doubt it's even possible.
    • thisisbrians 5y ago
      I wouldn't quite equate "be fierce" with "be an asshole". My take: PG is suggesting that smart people who are formidable and stick to their guns are more likely to change the course of things. If you are overly 'kind' and allow all of your good ideas to be dismissed by others, you aren't going to be as successful. This doesn't mean you have to intentionally hurt others in the process. It could mean you take your ferocity and point it at starting your own company because you believe you have a better way and are tired of trying to convince others to your way of thinking. Edit: a word.
  • betageek 5y ago
    PG essays === Tech Horoscopes
• TechBro8615 5y ago
  Fierce nerds read this and say “that’s totally me!”
• sbt 5y ago
  A lot of this is just the description of an emotionally immature person.
• grae_QED 5y ago
  >To be a nerd is to be socially awkward, and there are two distinct ways to do that: to be playing the same game as everyone else, but badly, and to be playing a different game. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I've always been under the impression that this is what it's like to be a geek. Maybe someone can help me understand the two. I've always identified more as a geek for this reason, but maybe I'm a nerd.
  • wcarss 5y ago
    my read on the two has always been: nerd: intellectually inclined geek: unusually interested in some hobby And of course being one, or both, or none, and liking math, or liking star wars, or both, or disliking math, or disliking star wars, etc. are all valid combinations.
• stephc_int13 5y ago
  These days, being a nerd or being "on the spectrum" is mostly synonymous. And now we have this attempt at describing the properties of a sub-category of "Fierce Nerds". In my opinion, this is a poor model, not super useful and with many potential drawbacks related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism.
• postit 5y ago
  Most of us doing tech for more than 20 years grew up as a fierce award nerd. Them somewhere aroud early 2010s being a nerd was the new cool and paid off. Tech teams had more non-nerd competent engineers, and suddenly nerds are a target for complains and a bad example of teamwork.
• langitbiru 5y ago
  > There has never been a better time to be a nerd. In the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from dealmakers to technicians — from the charismatic to the competent What happens if a nerd learns how to be charismatic? It's a winning combo, I guess.
• mcguire 5y ago
  "I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that your fierceness will be a great help in solving difficult problems. And not just the kind of scientific and technical problems that nerds have traditionally solved. As the world progresses, the number of things you can win at by getting the right answer increases. Recently getting rich became one of them: 7 of the 8 richest people in America are now fierce nerds." It's good that we've gotten past the tedious "solving society's problems" blather. "If you do choose the ambitious route, you'll have a tailwind behind you. There has never been a better time to be a nerd. In the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from dealmakers to technicians — from the charismatic to the competent — and I don't see anything on the horizon that will end it. At least not till the nerds end it themselves by bringing about the singularity." Isn't Graham a dealmaker? Isn't that exactly what Y Combinator does? And given Graham's comments about inequality, why am I ambivalent about the singularity of the fierce nerds?
  • capableweb 5y ago
    After reading some of his books, essays and hearing people talking about him, I think Graham is first and foremost a nerd and hacker, the other stuff is secondary. At least that's how it looked before the last couple of years, his view on things seems to have slightly changed recently, so not sure anymore actually.
    • mcguire 5y ago
      He certainly started that way; his Common Lisp stuff is interesting, although I don't usually agree that it's the best approach. But as far as I know, the only technical thing he's done since selling Viaweb is ... this forum. You apply to YC for money and for contacts---exactly what dealmakers do.
      • wmil 5y ago
        He's done internal software to manage YC. YC itself was born out of an attempt to hack the hack the VC funding system. Shift things to be more friendly to technical types. So it was an attempt to improve a complex system as opposed to focussing on making deals. Systems focussed instead of people focussed.
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• mikekij 5y ago
  Random question about PaulGraham.com: I noticed that the header of his blog posts are always images; not text. e.g. "fierce-nerds-1.gif". Does anyone have any idea why he renders the title as an image? And do we think this happens programmatically? Or is he firing up ImageMagick every time he posts?
• bradleyjg 5y ago
  Why do we need to reclaim nerd? A lot of us have painful memories associated with the term, can we just let it fade into well deserved obscurity?
  • shohpanhandler 5y ago
    Plus it's not as though people don't still make fun of nerds. They just don't throw the term itself around anymore. Twitter (not that we should be paying any attention to the thought pit anyway) is rife with jabs at smart/technical people and some of our more common idiosyncrasies.
    • Der_Einzige 5y ago
      The butthurt at our (collective) success is also obvious from a wide variety of sources. My gun-loving red state relatives have impressed upon me multiple times about how the high pay that engineers get and general cushy life that they get is really bad for society and that eventually when the power turns off due to a solar flare we will be essentially their slaves. There's even a comic of this exact scenario that gets posted all the time on 4chan which I cannot for the life of me find but documents this exact scenario happening. It really sucks I guess to make 45K fixing tractors all day with demanding managers hearing all about how the person half your age is making 4x what you make by writing yaml files with basically no stress and good WLB. The right answer to "how do I stop getting exploited" for many is unironically "learn to code" (yes, including to many of those coal miners in WV), but they HATE when you say this. Kinda sad too since most of the hate is from people that never even tried it. They seethe at our success, and would take it away from us in a heartbeat if ever given the chance. Just look at the culture war being waged against "big tech" right now.
      • courtf 5y ago
        It's misplaced anger, but that anger is valid. Not everyone can adapt nor gets the opportunity to adapt. Our society leaves millions behind, a cruelty that keeps the wheels of capitalism lubricated with fear of the same happening to you.
• 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
  Any fierce person can be overconfident, productive, and a giant douchebag. With fierceness, you can "win" even if you're stupid. (Recent worldwide national political appointees make this a fact.) The "Nerd" part just means this fierce person lacks social awareness. It's good to be fierce and intelligent, but it's really important to be compassionate and empathetic too. IQ without EQ is wealth without health. If you truly want to enjoy life, if you don't want to make other people miserable, and you would like other people to raise you up in good company, you need to work on how you treat and think about other people. For nerds I think this is as difficult a problem to solve as any other they could attempt.
• dkarl 5y ago
  This essay falls flat for me because I think Paul Graham is only talking about nerds of my generation, people who are in their forties and older. I don't see any nerds like myself and my friends in the generation that is in their twenties now. It's interesting to think about the difference, though, and he does nail a few things about nerds from my generation. Most importantly, that being socially awkward was a prerequisite, because functioning social instincts would have prevented you from ever saying anything unconventional or investing time in learning things that were outside the norm. Without the internet to expose people to a diversity of views packaged in well-edited, easily digestible chunks, the socially acceptable range of interest was limited entirely to what people heard from tradition, network television, and if you were "edgy," MTV. Any progressive ideas you got, any historical perspective you got, anything you learned about different cultures, any cool ideas you had about the future, you got from books and magazines, and you were a total weirdo if you treated them as part of the shared world you inhabited with other people. And I'm talking about pretty mainstream stuff. Like, if you remembered something out of a National Geographic article you read and repeated it in conversation, that was already letting your freak flag fly. So we came to identify reading, curiosity, and a progressive attitude with social inappriopriateness, with grossness, and this had an enormous impact on us. It affected the way we presented ourselves, the way we dressed, everything. A hugely consequential example is our gut response to the feeling that we're about to say something that other people would find off-putting or offensive. We learned the habit of embracing that feeling. That was the feeling we got whenever we admitted to liking a book we read in English class, or talked about anything to do with science or math, or said, hey, did you know the last time that country had a democratic government we overthrew it? If those things were good, then it was good to embrace the feeling of social disapproval they generated, the way an athlete embraces the burning in their muscles in a hard workout. To be honest and intellectually engaged, we had to be weird and distasteful, and we learned not to trust anybody who shied away from that. The younger generations of nerds, I feel like they trust peer influence more. When they feel like they're about to say something inappropriate, their instinct is to pause and recheck their thinking, which, I have to say, I'm kind of jealous of that. They take it for granted that the people they feel pressure from are people they choose as their peers, people who reflect their own values and therefore have the potential to improve them. For my generation, being socially maladjusted felt like a moral imperative. We had to be socially maladjusted to be the people we wanted to be: curious, open-minded, engaged with the information and ideas trickling in from outside our little towns and schools. It was necessary, but it selected for people who already had a difficult time integrating socially and then further warped us in a way that maybe the generations after us aren't warped.
• hardwaregeek 5y ago
  Surprisingly, I'd argue that athletes are an example of fierce nerds. I think people vastly underestimate how nerdy top athletes are. They're people willing to devote their entire lives to obsessively analyzing a single game. Somebody like Jordan had to spend hours, days, years of their life just constantly shooting a ball at a basket. Not to mention the obsession with meta and strategy. We like to see people like Jordan or Kobe as normal people who happen to be really good at basketball. I disagree. They're nerds who happened to do a profession that doesn't seem nerdy to the public.
  • 29athrowaway 5y ago
    Once, the YouTube "algorithm" led me to video featuring a bodybuilder that explained that being a professional bodybuilder = being a professional eater. To bodybuilders (and I assume, also athletes), eating in a methodical and structured way is an important part of their job. The guy grew his own vegetables and spent a lot of time selecting food at markets, ate at very specific times, etc. That, combined with supplements, experimenting with different training regimes, etc... it's a lot of experimentation and certainly there's a lot of cognitive work behind all of that. I found this very interesting.
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    I think there’s a difference between the sort of subject-matter-preference driven obsessiveness that characterizes nerds and the one-of-the-few-visible-though-high-odds-of-failure-ways-out-of-a-miserable life that drives a lot of black kids to a focus lots of time and energy on basketball.
    • bidirectional 5y ago
      Very odd comment. Jordan and Kobe did not grow up miserably at all. Jordan grew up in a stable middle-class home and Kobe's dad was an NBA player-turned-coach.
      • nitrogen 5y ago
        I don't think they were talking about Jordan or Kobe specifically. There does seem to be a kind of seductive lie (not just in black communities) that sports or other long shots are a viable career path for the dedicated kid. Where I grew up, there were plenty of kids who believed they would be famous basketball players one day as a matter of fact, skaters who believed a fat sponsorship was in reach if they just got that kick flip down tight, even culinary artists who think they can join the ranks of the rich by catering their private dinners. It's probably the same with startups -- most startups fail, mine included, but either we delude ourselves into thinking that it's just a matter of putting in enough effort, or we are in situations where we really can't see any other option to escape the gravity well of our situations. Not so far off from someone obsessively playing ball to try to get out, except for the broader applicability of the skills gained if the long shot doesn't pay off.
• deleted 5y ago
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• tomp 5y ago
  Thanks, Paul, for writing this. It really puts a few of my traits into perspective, including being rude (interrupting people... just get to the point, dammit!) and being awkward (yeah, I just don't care about the game of "emotions" or whatever most people are playing)...
• est31 5y ago
  See also: Why nerds are unpopular. Feb 2003. http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7759892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7759892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13475146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13475146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24710474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24710474
• slibhb 5y ago
  In the essay, nerds are identified as socially awkward, not necessarily quiet but out of their element in social situations. And sure, Crick rubbed people the wrong way, because he was loud and overly-sociable. But wasn't he, by Watson's account, absolutely in his element in social situations? Isn't the main complaint about Crick the fact that he was too loud (especially his laugh), too willing to solve other people's problems? And was Watson a nerd at all? I think the magic of The Double Helix is that Watson tells the truth (or "his truth") to a fault. That's necessary for good biography and it's very rare but I don't get the sense that Watson is unaware of what he's doing or what the consequences will be. It seems like a conscious decision to write down everything he thinks and, as they say, publish and be damned. Anyway, I think the essay is making a semantic error here by identifying the usual heroes (odd men out, innovators, people who refuse to go along, people who do their own thing) as nerds. There's no doubt that going against the grain is almost a prerequisite for being an admirable person and also for being someone who changes the world. I just don't see that as nerdiness.
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• version_five 5y ago
  I see the description he puts forward as essentially fitting contrarian types. Speaking as a contrarian myself, I think the biggest challenge / trap is it's easy to point out things that are wrong or stupid, but tougher to do anything positive about it. I think this equates to the idea about avoiding becoming bitter. Also, something he missed, and the curse of the contrarian, is "the market can stay irrational long enough for you to lose all your money". This happens all the time with unorthodox ideas, you can be right but if the mainstream doesn't shift in your favor before too long, you get ignored, discredited, or worse. I'd argue this is a bigger problem now, there is more polarization and a shorter feedback cycle so ideas get shot down and people fall out of favor much more quickly. Popular but wrong ideas, once they have "network effects" are much stickier than they once were. All this is tougher on the contrarian, or "fierce nerd".
  • chmod600 5y ago
    I'm not convinced that it's a bigger problem now. In many ways, the ancient world was much stickier. A king could have a bad idea, and it could persist through generations before it falls to better ideas.
    • FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
      Are we talking about the Bronze Age, or about the early '00s? In the '00s, before the FAANG giants had arisen, I would say things were more dynamic than they are now, and there was more room for smaller players. If we're talking about the Bronze Age then this is a different conversation entirely. Then there was more continuity in each place with the past, but more difference between different places.
      • toyg 5y ago
        I’m not convinced that there was “more room for smaller players” in the ‘00s, the mobile switch created a lot of work for small players. The desktop-web atrophied a bit, particularly in areas where FAANG expanded, but the web and IT as a whole continues to grow and create opportunities for small players to emerge.
• smeeth 5y ago
  Not a big fan of this essay. I believe quite strongly that ~what you are~ is a product of ~what you do~ and not the other way around. In this framing, "Fierce Nerd" is nothing more than an arbitrary categorization of a set of exhibited behaviors. Graham has observed that intelligent, competitive, inquisitive, and confident individuals can do well in today's economy. He has also identified pitfalls associated with being too aggressive, too confident, or lacking other skills. I am unable to find the positive value of sticking a label on this coincidence of qualities and strongly implying the quantities and characteristics of these qualities are at least mostly inherent (with the exception of "fierceness", which apparently can be "turned off"). Of course nature does play a role, but why ignore nurture? It must be quite depressing to believe you are condemned to a life of little personal development.
• fallat 5y ago
  Awww did someone get their feelings hurt? The more this Paul Graham person writes the more I realize they are just another regular person.
  • Grustaf 5y ago
    Why would you use "they" when talking about someone you know for sure is a man? Aren't you supposed to "respect peoples' pronouns"?
    • dragonwriter 5y ago
      Knowing that someone is a man doesn’t mean knowing their pronouns; gender identity and pronoun preference are correlated but not 1:1 tied. It is somewhat inconvenient that the long traditional use of “they” for semantically singular cases where the correct pronoun is unknown has become blurred by “they/their/them” becoming a reasonably common preferred pronoun (especially among the nonbinary but also among some who identify as men or women), so its use to avoid the risk of an incorrect specific pronoun can be misread.
      • Grustaf 5y ago
        Has PG, or anyone else, ever referred to him as anything but a "he"? Since 99.9% of men refer to themselves as men, that would seem like a useful default.
• Grustaf 5y ago
  > In ordinary social situations they are — as quiet and diffident as the star quarterback would be if he found himself in the middle of a physics symposium I don't think a QB is ever "diffident". I bet he'd feel a lot more confident there than the nerd on a football field, or really anywhere.
• jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  For years I've labeled this nonsense the Midas Delusion: people get dramatically unusual success with their startup, and then conclude that they somehow have superior insight into every banal topic they choose to opine on. They fail to properly understand the path dependency and sheer luck that played a roll in their success, nor that the biggest lesson their success should teach them is humility in the socratic ignorance sense. This is a very large number of words to essentially say "when I was a jerk in the past it was actually virtue." If you don't see that plainly and transparently I'm not sure what to say to you. PG deserves credit for creating YC, but from the narrative in this essay it's clear he does not even understand how that happened or his own role in it (assuming he's not being straight up dishonest in his writing). He's a deal making power player, nearly a king maker, not a technocratic nerd. No amount of essay writing will erase that reality. I am so very weary of this nonsense being taken seriously as sage advice. We already have too many reductive stereotypes in tech. Let's not lionize them.
  • mistersquid 5y ago
    > I am so very weary of this nonsense being taken seriously as sage advice. Agreed. In fact, in the featured article, the author makes reference to the hard science achievement of Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA as follows. > And moreover it's clear from the story that Crick and Watson's fierce nerdiness was integral to their success. Their independent-mindedness caused them to consider approaches that most others ignored, their overconfidence allowed them to work on problems they only half understood (they were literally described as "clowns" by one eminent insider), and their impatience and competitiveness got them to the answer ahead of two other groups that would otherwise have found it within the next year, if not the next several months. Pointing to this as an example of fierceness producing contrarian success completely ignores the sheer amount of luck that contributed to the timing of Watson and Crick's discovery. Given a different roll of the experimental dice, Watson and Crick's method might have had temporary setbacks that resulted in their names being relegated to footnotes. As luck and effort would have it, two of the most ornery scientists of the twentieth century will figure as pioneers in the annals of science history.
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• logicslave 5y ago
  "If you do choose the ambitious route, you'll have a tailwind behind you. There has never been a better time to be a nerd. In the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from dealmakers to technicians — from the charismatic to the competent — and I don't see anything on the horizon that will end it. At least not till the nerds end it themselves by bringing about the singularity."
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• goatcode 5y ago
  TIL "fierce" in the nerd world means having a massive ego and a severe over-estimation of how awesome you are. These kinds of people make me sick, regardless of whether they're nerds.
• SilurianWenlock 5y ago
  > As the world progresses, the number of things you can win at by getting the right answer increases. What does this mean?
• RobRivera 5y ago
  >[1] To be a nerd is to be socially awkward, and there are two distinct ways to do that: to be playing the same game as everyone else, but badly, and to be playing a different game. The smart nerds are the latter type. while I value the observation and concur, I'd like to semantically edit it vis :%s/socially awkward/behaviorally atypical/g 'awkward' just rubs me as poor word choice. for instance, throw me into a cs:go chat and I am the norm, complete with trolling, voices, and other things.
• mempko 5y ago
  Paul Graham, The Fierce Nerd Eater. Feed him fierce nerds. Many will be chewed and spit out. Some will succeed. Like highly competitive athletes (even more so, some become billionaires!). Those spit out need help with mental health. Or maybe instead of abusing mentally fragile people, we need something a bit more healthy. We need to make it honorable to fail and those that fail get the help they need. We need to make the harms as small as possible and the benefits as broadly shared as possible. But many nerds trying many things don't need to be fierce. We can have many experiments with cooperation not competition. We need decentralization not centralization.
• chalst 5y ago
  > And moreover it's clear from the story that Crick and Watson's fierce nerdiness was integral to their success. I dare say PG's analysis of the psychology of Crick & Watson is correct, but one should not take only Watson's word for it about the source of their success. Rosalind Franklin was the first to observe the double-helix structure, a fact omitted from Watson's book. https://sites.psu.edu/magdaliapassionblog/2018/02/08/watson-and-crick/ https://sites.psu.edu/magdaliapassionblog/2018/02/08/watson-...
  • hazeii 5y ago
    Very much agree on not taking Watson's word for it. As for Franklin, it would be nice to think the Nobol committee would have agonised long and hard had she lived long enough to make it an issue for them (given at most 3 people can share a nobel, her early death ruled her out - a fact often ignored).
• lvs 5y ago
  Is this not just a broad ad hominem against people with whom this venture capitalist has had prior disagreements? If only you choose to do risky things that are (inexplicably in many cases) capital intensive -- i.e. engage investors in ways good for them -- then you will be a good nerd. Investors will make you rich. Everyone will be happy. But if you don't engage investors, then you will become a bad nerd! Bad nerd! Bad!
• wiggumspiggums 5y ago
  "Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?" -Jeff Bezos https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/05/30/2010-baccalaureate-remarks https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/05/30/2010-baccalaureate... "Fierce nerds" can be valuable. Sure. But the folks who truly stand out in my mind are a level higher. They're the ones at the top of their game, who know how to demand & command excellence, without being jerks about it. I'm reminded of this episode of "The Chef Show" where Jon Favreau compliments Roy Choi behind his back. He tells Bill Burr that he had followed Roy around for a full day, going to all his restaurants and food trucks, and not once did Roy raise his voice to his staff. It's pretty cool to see how much admiration one artist/leader has for the other, not because of their technical skills but because they choose to be kind. I don't think we need to settle for being "fierce nerds".
  • username90 5y ago
    Once you have achieved significant status and money you no longer need to be fierce since people listen anyway. But most people worth listening to doesn't have significant status and money, instead we wait until they found their own companies and become rich before we listen to them.
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    • philosopher1234 5y ago
      This may be true for you, but not for me. I listen to many people who are not well known, and who are not rich, and who arae not startup founders. For instance, none of my friends are rich startup founders, neither is my partner, nor my therapist, nor my coworkers, yet I consider all their opinions valuable (more so than the rich "fierce nerds"). Most of the podcasts I listen to are not run by the rich and powerful, either.
      • username90 5y ago
        It is true for society in aggregate, which is why big companies often loses to small startups on their own strong points. That should be basically impossible if the big companies were anywhere close to rational, but as we know such things happens all the time.
• henning 5y ago
  You can have a good career and a good life without being a macho asshole bully. Grow up.
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• eggbrain 5y ago
  For me, as much as I am competitive, I feel like it only drives me when the odds of what I am competing for feel somewhat fair. To give an example, a lot of my friends have been into Magic the Gathering for many years, and I recently tried to get into it myself, but the asymmetric gaps were too large for me to enjoy it -- they had way more knowledge, more cards, had spent more money, and had more time to spend playing outside of work hours, resulting in me getting crushed again and again. There was two options I could take: 1) Try to catch up on years of accumulated knowledge, or 2) Change tactics, and see if instead I could play a game we all were more similarly matched with. I chose the latter. In entrepreneurship, I feel like it's no different. For me, fighting a large startup on common ground is a losing game -- they have the money, the manpower, the knowledge, the social proof, and more. As competitive as I am, and as hard as I push, it's not going to be a fair fight to begin with. So instead, it's about me finding a battlefield where the odds change more in my favor -- perhaps something that doesn't scale, something I have innate knowledge in, etc. Not sure if that lines up perfectly with what PG is saying here, but it's worked well for me.
  • ronyeh 5y ago
    [1] To be a nerd is to be socially awkward, and there are two distinct ways to do that: to be playing the same game as everyone else, but badly, and to be playing a different game. The smart nerds are the latter type. PG probably agrees with you, as that's the first footnote from his article above.
    • eggbrain 5y ago
      D'oh, this is what I get for not reading the footnotes closely!
  • swinnipeg 5y ago
    "The best way to beat Tiger Woods is to play him at something other than golf." I think I am paraphrasing Buffett here, this can apply to so many career/business decisions.
• qxga 5y ago
  "I'm less sure why fierce nerds are impatient, but most seem to be. You notice it first in conversation, where they tend to interrupt you." The answer is pretty obviously ADHD. Interrupting and "impatience" are very common traits in people with ADHD.
• getpost 5y ago
  Since pg's essay is of a psychoanalytic nature, I'll reply in a psychoanalytic frame, for the sake of conversation, not criticism. [Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even to psychoanalysts.] During the last year or two pg has written more than a few essays and tweets which appear to be of a defensive nature. People like him contribute more than other people, it's alright to to be fierce, can't speak the "truth," etc. Whenever there is dichotomous thinking, cognition has moved away from clarity. If it were me, I'd be asking myself, What is being defended? (This kind of question can be a multi-decade inquiry.) Although most of us are easily baited into self-justification or self-promotion, I think going down that path it is ultimately a distraction from doing real work and knowing who you are.
  • whatshisface 5y ago
    PG, if you asked him, might describe himself as defending people who do real work from a larger culture that all too often prioritizes serving the status quo over accomplishing the goals that the status quo was established to accomplish. One example of that would be SpaceX doing the launch vehicle design work that the NASA/Boeing/Big Government Contractor complex was established to do. At the same time, SpaceX works its people extremely hard and is lead by a billionaire with abnormally unsophisticated PR. So there you have cultural and business forces set against a new company that has nothing going for it except the fact that it actually does stuff. Actually doing stuff is a surprisingly small advantage in a world that is interested in so many other qualities.
    • ziziyO 5y ago
      Why can’t we have both? A job where we can “actually do stuff” without getting mistreated by psychotic billionaires. There’s a lack of compassion in tech.
      • elteto 5y ago
        Assuming you are in the US: I’d say that, if anything, tech is a fantastic little bubble when compared to the rest of corporate America. We, the “nerds”, exert a level of control over our work/careers that is unparalleled in other industries. We have plenty of opportunities available if we dislike our current situation. Tech companies provide excellent benefits and compensation. Maybe only doctors have the same level of mobility/compensation. You will always be mistreated by someone if you work for a corporation. We have it easier than almost everybody else, really.
• splithalf 5y ago
  This essay reminded me the thin line between constructive fierce nerdiness and dysfunction. It’s hard to navigate the perimeters.
• notacoward 5y ago
  The problem with glorifying fierce nerds is that there are already too many of them. (Or us, perhaps, but not for me to say.) Sure it's great to have a few fierce nerds trying unconventional things, challenging orthodoxy, etc. Unfortunately, when there are many fierce nerds, they start to compete among themselves to have the most contrarian ideas and often to establish themselves as the earliest champions of those ideas as soon as possible. This rush, not only to be right but to be right when everyone else is wrong and to show them the light, is what makes people susceptible to bandwagons, cargo cults, and conspiracy theories. We see it plenty right here. Elsewhere we see it in QAnon. In both we see it in arguments about COVID origins and countermeasures. Like a chemical compound that's therapeutic in one dose but toxic in another, fierce nerds can be either a good thing or a bad thing. We're already well into the toxic side, so I think this is a poor moment for pg or anyone else to glorify more.
• egypturnash 5y ago
  “I’m not an asshole! I’m a FIERCE NERD.”
• sudosteph 5y ago
  Like knows like. That description definitely fits me, my husband and a few other people I in my life who I care about deeply. We all know we're obnoxious sometimes - but we're all just trying to root out the truth of things and improve things as well as we know how. It's a little annoying that we are pushed into pursuing capitalist endeavors over other things right now - but practically speaking, you can make a lot more change in less time if you have the capital for it. Still, it's stuff like Andrew Yang's presidential run that really give me hope that we might be on the cusp of changing things outside of business as well. Not just in politics (obviously, since he lost) but at least in culture - with coherent ideas and platforms that can't be ignored. There have been others in the past who were like us and tried similar things (Huey Long comes to mind), but understanding technology gives our generation a huge economic tool that we can also use to our advantage. Of course, if my peers are any indication: our society and entire economic system seem designed for the express purpose of making millennials depressed. And it's not really easy to shrug that off and just build things when the state of so many people you care about is so dire.
• AlexCoventry 5y ago
  > Another solution may be to somehow turn off your fierceness, by devoting yourself to meditation or psychotherapy or something like that. Maybe that's the right answer for some people. I have no idea. But it doesn't seem the optimal solution to me. If you're given a sharp knife, it seems to me better to use it than to blunt its edge to avoid cutting yourself. Meditation doesn't necessarily lead to a reduction in "ferocity." The Buddha was a fierce nerd, according to Graham's characterization of "fierce." He took on an ambitious goal, and made immense sacrifices to see it through. He could also be quite "fierce in his speech, post-enlightenment. E.g. > "And to whom, worthless man, do you understand me to have taught the Dhamma like that? Haven't I, in many ways, said of dependently co-arisen consciousness, 'Apart from a requisite condition, there is no coming-into-play of consciousness'? [2] But you, through your own poor grasp, not only slander us but also dig yourself up [by the root] and produce much demerit for yourself. That will lead to your long-term harm & suffering."
• pbhowmic 5y ago
  With respect, has there been any social science or psychological studies on the "fierce nerd" and its observed characteristics as Graham has noted here?
• 5tefan 5y ago
  A difficult topic. Everyone of us has a story to tell and a burden to carry. Focusses on some fierce nerds and misses all others. The gamut of personalties is vast. Got to try to bring out the best in people.
• greyhair 5y ago
  I worked with a number of brilliant people at Bell Labs through the 1980s/1990s. The most comfortably competent among them, the most productive among them, were also the least abrasive. They were also the most self deprecating. Not just one or two, but the majority of them. To the point that the aggressive geniuses stood out. And I worked for/with two abrasive ones as well, so I know the difference. The same was true for the two startups I worked at after that, and Qualcomm, and now the third startup where I work. The really productive geniuses in each situation were easy to work with, I think largely, because of their confidence in their own grasp of the subject at hand. They had nothing to prove, they knew that, and it showed. The difficult people were never stupid, far from it, but they felt like they needed to defend everything they did, every decision they made, and that made working with them less productive. With the gentle geniuses, if you thought you came up with something that was an improvement on what was being done, they would look at it honestly, and if it was not better, they would calmly explain why, and if it was better, they would acknowledge it right out and discuss how to merge that into the current work. The 'less gentle' ones would take pride in pointing out the flaws in your idea if you were wrong, and if you were right, would fight you over whether it had any real value at all, then would stiff arm you as far as getting it accepted as a change.
  • steve_adams_86 5y ago
    My favourite people to work with are the gentle geniuses. I love to be wrong around them because I get to learn, and I love opportunities to present something useful I've done and know it will become a valuable contribution. I avoid the other kind of person like a plague now. They ruin otherwise excellent teams. They might be fine to have a drink with or something, but in day to day work, they are sand paper. Another thing I find is that the gentle variety tend to understand and appreciate realistic timelines. Highly competitive "nerds" tend to fight on timelines, or suppress others using them. Why wasn't that done sooner? Wait, all you did in 3 days was this? It's a terrible tool used to knock team mates down a peg on a routine basis.
    • tomcam 5y ago
      I know, right? It is one of the greatest things in the world to be the dumbest guy in a room full of really smart, secure people. It’s like you’re getting a mini postdoc education for free, compressed into a few minutes.
• ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  This essay feels like it really panders to the reader. It excuses poor social skills, tells you that you too can become rich by simply "getting the right answer" and that it's the best time ever to be a nerd. I don't buy it. The only way this makes sense is in hindsight if you're massively successful. Otherwise you're just the weird person who has poor social skills and is obsessed with "solving problems".
• fungiblecog 5y ago
  I think the problem with Paul Graham's writing is that it always comes down to talking about getting rich. A lot of people - including very intelligent people - have other things they'd rather do than play such a stupid game. Unfortunately the world is pushing everyone in that direction which will create a lot of bitterness because most people necessarily lose that game.
  • wizzwizz4 5y ago
    I still fail to understand how we've organised society so that the losers of a particular game don't eat. It's virtually decoupled from helping other people with stuff (which is what the economy purports to represent); you have old money, and nth-generation new money, and people working two jobs to afford rent. “Invest” in the stock market in X way, and you can stop working earlier – that is, if you had enough savings to do so.
    • jdlshore 5y ago
      You've presented a false dichotomy. There's a lot of room between "get rich" and "don't eat." I'd wager that most software developers fit very comfortably between the two. I agree with GP's dislike of Graham's emphasis on getting rich. There's more to life.
      • wizzwizz4 5y ago
        It's not a dichotomy; there are plenty of people who are doing okay. But there are definitely winners, and definitely losers, and it's a game for some and survival for others.
  • elihu 5y ago
    I'm inclined to agree, but in fairness to Paul Graham I'll note that one of his essays I think relates back to your point. His observation was that even if you aren't trying to do things for the money and just want to solve some problem, a lot of times the only practical option is to form a company. Maybe that isn't always true, but at least it seems plausible. He also notes that not chasing money can have advantages: craigslist isn't a charity, but they run it like one. That makes them pretty hard to compete against. Exerpt: > Back when I was working on spam filters I thought it would be a good idea to have a web-based email service with good spam filtering. I wasn't thinking of it as a company. I just wanted to keep people from getting spammed. But as I thought more about this project, I realized it would probably have to be a company. It would cost something to run, and it would be a pain to fund with grants and donations. > That was a surprising realization. Companies often claim to be benevolent, but it was surprising to realize there were purely benevolent projects that had to be embodied as companies to work. > I didn't want to start another company, so I didn't do it. But if someone had, they'd probably be quite rich now. There was a window of about two years when spam was increasing rapidly but all the big email services had terrible filters. If someone had launched a new, spam-free mail service, users would have flocked to it. http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html
• MikeTaylor 5y ago
  > In the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from dealmakers to technicians — from the charismatic to the competent ... writes a man who was evidently not paying attention to the US presidential election of 2016 or the UK Conservative Party leadership election of 2019.
• coldtea 5y ago
  >There's also a natural connection between nerdiness and independent-mindedness. Is it, or it's just an anecdotal projection from PGs own experience ("I'm nerdy and I consider myself independently minded, also know a few others like that"). This is just extrapolating from the diminishingly small number of nerds who are also SV entrepreneurs. But historically nerds (e.g. 50s and 60s "propellerheads") were just working for companies and research labs as employees, and mostly on what they were told. Most still do exactly that. Socially also many nerds otherwise follow the herd and "try to belong" with the "cool people" (often in vain).
• hamburga 5y ago
  Nerds are already high-status. Look who just hosted Saturday Night Live. The contrarian position is to be anti-nerd and pro-charm. Taleb on this: https://www.azquotes.com/author/18869-Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb/tag/nerd https://www.azquotes.com/author/18869-Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb/... > Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them; nerdiness the reverse
  • crocodiletears 5y ago
    Is there any broader context to this quote?
    • hamburga 5y ago
      Nope, it's from his book of aphorisms.
      • crocodiletears 5y ago
        Took me a moment to realize that he has literally written a book of aphorisms, and that this wasn't a smarmy dismissal. Well worth the chuckle.
        • hamburga 5y ago
          I'll take all the laughs I can get! No smarm intended.
• courtf 5y ago
  As usual, there's a fair bit of "just so" equivocating going here (success being the antidote to bitterness stands out as especially over-rationalized, as if anyone was really wondering why the successful are so cheerful, ignorance is bliss Paul). That said, I like this essay a bit more than recent previous entries. The level of fierceness your workplace can tolerate definitely varies a lot, and on multiple axis, one of which is whether or not it's currently fashionable for people of your category to have an attitude. There's also a difference between "fierce" and "anti-social" which could be explored a bit more. And lastly, competition has been ramping up since forever, and with it comes unproductive, unnecessary fierceness and extreme focus on short horizons for everyone,even those not naturally inclined toward either, which is lamentable. Overall though, I'd say this does describe a certain set you are likely to find in tech quite accurately, although the correlation with success and wealth probably has more to do with investment preferences than any actual operational advantage created by this behavior. Believing in the need for hyper-competitive fierceness while also having influence over the direction of funding turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy, when the reality is that luck and timing are much more impactful. No VC will ever just admit they're playing craps, and would rather everyone believe they have special knowledge that allows them to count cards.
• hvaoc 5y ago
  Just wondering if it is good idea to compile a list of such Gentle Genius. If you folks think it is a good idea - please share it here. https://forms.gle/FxDYS3hC3JmHDieo7 https://forms.gle/FxDYS3hC3JmHDieo7
• alexyz12 5y ago
  Nerdiness is an expression of trauma. Pain in our lives leads us to recede into areas of interest. These can be things that "fix" us or things that we are naturally good at or become good at. Its all therapy to feel better about ourselves. Everyone has trauma and everyone is a nerd in some area. Aggression is projection. When lashing out we chose areas of safety from which to do it. Thus people who have been hurt chose to be aggressive in their areas of expertise. Boom fierce nerds.
• lawrenceyan 5y ago
  Though there is room for fierceness as an engine for motivation, generally kindness/understanding over bluntness/abrasiveness is the way to go for meaningful long term impact. There’s a reason, for example, why Sundar Pichai became CEO instead of anyone else. This is also an argument against Paul’s proclamation of “fierce” leaders being required for successful businesses. Overall though, I agree with the general sentiment of the post. The end paragraph was a nice touch: > There has never been a better time to be a nerd. In the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from dealmakers to technicians — from the charismatic to the competent — and I don't see anything on the horizon that will end it. At least not till the nerds end it themselves by bringing about the singularity.
  • lazide 5y ago
    Eh, as in all things 'it depends'. Sundar could not have built Google to be what it became (and he ended up running), anymore than Tim Cook could have done that for Apple. Larry and Sergei could not run what Google became, but it would not have gotten there without their leadership (As many problems as there were). It takes different kinds of leaders to be successful in different kinds of environments/challenges. Especially early on, you rarely win by making everyone happy or following the rules. You can rarely run a huge megacorporation if you aren't a master of keeping people on message and motivated across a huge swath of expertise and experience, and if you aren't following (or making) the rules in a wider sense you're going to get stomped by lawsuits and other legal issues once you reach a certain size. Before that, you often can't make much progress if you're not willing to do that (and can often get away with it). The list of people who can be the best effective leaders in both environments is even smaller than the list of billionaire tech founder CEOs and giant megacorp unicorn FAANGs.
    • lawrenceyan 5y ago
      Those are good points. Given Paul’s focus on startups, his perspective makes a lot more sense.
• xiaodai 5y ago
  "In the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from dealmakers to technicians — from the charismatic to the competent" hard to justify given Trump
• peterthehacker 5y ago
  The “fierce nerd” sounds a lot like what Reed Hastings (Netflix, Founder) calls “brilliant jerks.” To quote his recent book: > Sometimes really talented people have heard for so long how great they are, they begin to feel they really are better than everybody else. They might smirk at ideas they find unintelligent, roll their eyes when people are inarticulate, and insult those they feel are less gifted then they are. At Netflix, they say “no brilliant jerks” because they will “rip your organization apart from the inside”.[0] A lot of this sounds like justification for a brilliant jerk’s behavior. While it’s tempting to take the “fierce nerd” badge and wear it proudly, ferocity can turn into jerkiness pretty quickly. [0] https://www.amazon.com/No-Rules-Netflix-Culture-Reinvention/dp/1984877860/ https://www.amazon.com/No-Rules-Netflix-Culture-Reinvention/...
  • mkoubaa 5y ago
    We're not talking about people who disrespect waitresses. fierce =/= jerk. There are many well intentioned nerds who try their best to be considerate and kind that can't help but be impatient in technical discussions. Some organizations don't tolerate that and some do, and those who do are at a natural advantage.
    • peterthehacker 5y ago
      > We're not talking about people who disrespect waitresses Right, we’re not. We’re referring to behavior in the workplace. > There are many well intentioned nerds who try their best to be considerate and kind that can't help but be impatient in technical discussions. This is true, but I don’t think that accurately describes pg’s definition of a “fierce nerd” in the article. Also, Netflix would probably still classify someone like this as a “brilliant jerk”. Maybe they would give this nerd a chance to change their behavior, since it’s unintentional. > Some organizations don't tolerate that and some do, and those who do are at a natural advantage. These days, no one could confidently make the claim that Netflix has a “natural disadvantage” in this respect. They have the strongest technology in their market and have no lack of talent in any of their technical departments. Companies that win have top talent, but this talent needs to be able to work with the team effectively. Whether you want to use the term “jerk” or “fierce”, if a team member is being disrespectful to other team members then the team breaks down.
• l8again 5y ago
  Paul Graham is a good writer - I give him that. But this piece can't be taken seriously. Please don't go interrupting everybody in meetings to show that you are intellectually superior.
• rektide 5y ago
  I greatly dislike the emphasis on competitveness. I think that's incredidnly wrong & not at all a part of fierceness. many who have great vast deep activation potential (belief & knowledge & could mpetrncy, long & hard accrued) do not personalize themselves so. Becoming comfortable with ambiguity, with not knowing, with mystery is one of the finest clearest signs of intellect to me. these folk are both deeply empassioned, fierce, but receptive able to be persuaded, not decidi ares to a side or themselves. they recognize the non-zero sum nature of reality, recognize that there are many lessons & potentials for improvement everywhere. to be fierce is to be hungry, to want to find the right & true & uncover & make use of as much as possible, to learn more, see more, experience more, much of which will be tainted & not right but in those failures equally constructive & establishing. deeply dislike some of the characterizations here, but also grateful to have some persona of some kind of integrity that somewhat resembles the mensches I still identify the nerds as being strivers for.
• courtf 5y ago
  PG often writes about people as if they have immutable characteristics, like being mean, or a hater, or a loser, or having fierceness. It's a dull, incomplete way to look at the world that makes his writing wooden and unrelatable. Observing the world, especially fellow human beings, in such rigid, discrete contrasts would seem to drain life of any dynamism, producing a grayscale vision of reality that belies all but the most shallow information about any subject. Despite admitting his ignorance of their origins, he still doesn't hold back on suggesting motivations and life stories that might explain people's behavior. Why anyone would turn to a VC for this kind of writing baffles me, but I guess there are people out there who entertain themselves by reading appliance manuals and the like.
• TheGigaChad 5y ago
  Is Paul Graham running his articles trough AI? They are ALL exactly the same.
• tutfbhuf 5y ago
  It is possible on HN to hide certain posts. I really like this feature. I wonder whether it is possible to hide some websites like paulgraham.com altogether. That would be great.
• vs4vijay 5y ago
  Can this be a cause of ADHD?
• maxxsh 5y ago
  Please comment who didn’t recognize yourself :)