12 ms·

Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant

558 points by janzer 15y ago

OoTheNigerian 15y ago
Although it was a great read, to me it lacked a kind of authenticity. The first Yegge post felt real, authentic, natural and fully charged. This second one although better formatted and edited, lacked something. It just seemed obigatory and bland. It is rather amazing that you can feel emotions through words. Or am I the only one thinking this way?
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  I think you're being harsh. I think it was probably more considered but I'm guessing that everything he's written since THAT post has been more considered - it would be a completely natural reaction to having accidentally laid yourself bare. After all whom amongst us having accidentally forwarded an e-mail to the wrong person hasn't got a little more careful about what we say for a while afterwards? But I still think it sounds genuine and honest, just a little more polished.
  - OoTheNigerian 15y ago
    Ok, maybe considered is less harsh than bland. But do you think it is a good thing? The first time I noticed this was when I listed to the original and then studio version of 2 Pac's "Hit 'em up". In the first he was really and truly angry and you could feel it. The second version was 'just there'. When actors and actresses get "into character" it is really clear. They mean what they act and it seems natural. let us just say he was "in character" in the first post but not in the second.
    - frek818 15y ago
      Nice analogy :)
    - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
      The problem is that anger often sounds more authentic but anyone who has ever been angry will testify that what you say when you're angry (or even just irritated) doesn't necessarily reflect your actual view, just one facet of it. Yegge's original piece was making a specific point and he came out with examples that supported that but that doesn't mean that those examples represent Yegge's overall view of Bezos and it's reasonable that he might want to throw out the other side of it. In terms of whether it's honest - from both pieces I think it's fairly clear that Yegge doesn't believe that Bezos gives a shit what Yegge thinks so I see no reason why Yegge wouldn't be being truthful. But even if Yegge was toning himself down, I don't have an issue with that. I think that among some in the tech community there is a feeling that "honesty" and "truth" tend to trump everything. While that's great in theory the baggage (usually personal offence) that comes with it has to be considered. Ultimately life is about getting stuff done and for most of us who aren't Jobs or Bezos level genius where brutal honesty will be forgiven, a "polished" truth will often get us better responses from others than it's more brutal counterpart. If that's the case we all have to ask ourselves do you want to be right, or do you want to get things done? Note: I'm not talking about lying here, I'm just talking about how you present the truth.
      - OoTheNigerian 15y ago
        So how do you suggest you convey true emotions through words while being diplomatic? As we both agree 'considered' posts can eliminate the true feeling. I do not think only anger can be conveyed. I am not being specific about this very situation. And I agree that being diplomatic can be more effective most times. Edited: To provide contest for question.
        Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
        I don't think considered posts do eliminate the true feeling. They eliminate the visceral, immediate reaction but that's only one part of the truth. If you're angry (or happy) at someone that's certainly a true feeling but is it any truer than the way you feel 10 minutes later when you've calmed down a bit and considered things? If a colleague irritates me and I shout at him sure that's a representation of part of what I feel at that moment, but it doesn't represent the fact that ultimately I respect them and they normally do great work. So is shouting at them really my true feeling or just one small element of it that ultimately doesn't represent what I feel very well at all? Ultimately though I think you have to ask yourself what am I try to achieve, how is what I'm going to say going to achieve that and am I happy that it really does represent "the truth" or is it just a knee jerk reaction (good or bad).
  - mmahemoff 15y ago
    When you work at a high profile company, anything you say about another high-profile competitor must be very considered. Steve has always been more frank than most commentators in Google and other high profile companies, but even if the previous post hadn't gone public, a story about Bezos did need to be considered. And full respect to him for saying this much. For a company so successful, one hears very little about how Amazon runs internally. Looking forward to Steve's next instalment.
- rehack 15y ago
  I, like many of you, like Steve Yegge's eloquence. But not always agree with his logic. I have issues with both his posts (the leaked one and this), on the logic front. a) In the earlier accidentally leaked one, I felt he was being too harsh on Jeff Bezos, in the UI design story he stated. Even having only the data points of Yegge's essay, I could understand Bezos point as far as the UI changes were concerned: 'Why mend it if its not broken?' Also Jeff Bezos, had a vision of building Amazon into a huge company, right from the start. He comes across as a rare _true visionary_, for many reasons. Two simple ones: success with Amazon.com and then with EC2 . So I did not like at all when Steve sort of derided him in his post. b) In this second post, it seems to me, that Steve is _making it up_ for the damage done in the first one. Making good use of his _eloquence_ to convert a single & perhaps boring meeting experience he had with Bezos, into an interesting one.
  - mark_up 15y ago
    > 'Why mend it if its not broken?' But it was broken. Amazon did amazingly not because of their UI, but in spite of it.
spicyj 15y ago
Combined with all the talk of Isaacson's new Steve Jobs biography, makes me want to read an in-depth biography of Bezos's life.
- bgarbiak 15y ago
  Comes out next week: http://www.amazon.com/One-Click-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon-com/dp/1591843758/ http://www.amazon.com/One-Click-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon-com/dp/159...
  - davidw 15y ago
    I'm actually more interested to read this, for several reasons: Much of the "Steve Jobs story" is quite public already - it's stuff that you just can't help knowing. Reed, Wozniak, kicked out of Apple, Next, Pixar, etc... I'm sure the bio will have some new details, but the basic plot is pretty well known. Jeff Bezos, OTOH, is someone I know relatively little about. Also, given that my nascent LiberWriter business deals with Kindle formatting, decisions those guys are making have a very real impact on me.
- samwillis 15y ago
  I read this book http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Get-Fast-Robert-Spector/dp/0066620422/ http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Get-Fast-Robert-Spector/dp/... back soon after it came out after finding it randomly in my school library and remember thinking it was good. Its a little old now though.
simondlr 15y ago
Well written! Is Jeff Bezos really like he paints him to be?
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  I have no relevant experience with anything, but my impression is that usually people who gush on about the superhuman abilities of an individual just have a skewed perspective. I've been on the receiving end of that kind of gush a time or two and I don't really feel that it's accurate in my case, and I don't believe that it's accurate in any other case. The people that talk just can't see the inadequacies and the common weaknesses that are visible from a better-informed context. Jeff Bezos may indeed be smart, and he may indeed come up with things that "domain experts" haven't yet thought of, but the explanations are usually much more timid and general than "Jeff is practically a giant-brained alien".
  - danmaz74 15y ago
    On a much smaller scale, my company's founder and CEO is viewed as one such super-intelligent alien. And for sure he is very smart and has an incredible memory. But I can guarantee you that he doesn't know "everything" at all, but this is how he is perceived by many.
  - msellout 15y ago
    I've had that same experience -- that people exclaim how certain CEOs are so incredibly brilliant ("cerebral" was one comment that stuck in my memory), but when you meet them they just seem like any other smart person who has studied a domain for a long time.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  I've presented to Bezos once. It went about the same as Yegge's experience, except I didn't have his balls to laugh in my CEO's face ;) The whole thing felt like I was meeting the President - layer after layer of aides and executive assistants, tons of security, and briefings on where to sit, where to not sit, where to stand, where to not stand, look him in the eye when you shake his hand, etc etc. It was kind of surreal. I haven't presented to any other big-corp CEO other than him, so I can't really draw any comparisons. One thing Yegge brought up that I also felt the same about walking out of that room: Jeff is really smart, like really, really smart. I was warned about this beforehand and spent two weeks poring over every single detail, potential feature, everything about the idea I was presenting. He still managed to come out of left field with relevant questions that none of us had even thought of. So I can corroborate that side of the story. The comparison to Liszt also seems apt - before we were even done presenting, he'd already grokked it to a surprising degree, and was already expanding upon the idea in out loud. You could hear my manager scribbling like a madman trying to get all of this down. This might not seem especially amazing, but the Director and VP level people I presented the very same idea to had not the same depth of insight. I remember being very impressed on the spot. I'm no longer with Amazon, and I don't particularly want to go back - but that's not due to bad top management, IMO Bezos is one of the keenest tech CEOs around. He might be the closest thing we have left to Jobs. To balance it out a bit and not make this seems like a complete Amazon love-fest: Jeff loved our idea, he gave us the green light right away. We left that room ecstatic thinking we were about to change the online retail experience forever. Then middle management showed up. There was political infighting about who owns the project - it straddled multiple disciplines (hence why it was so groundbreaking), and there was a mixture of both hot-potato-oh-god-you-take-it and this-is-amazing-we-need-the-credit-on-this. The teams that were interested were unwilling to yield to other teams that (rightfully, given their expertise and domain) wanted in, and some teams we needed support from kept punting it since it wasn't in their yearly plan (put together, well, a year or more ago). The project would have provided very powerfully tangible, very high-profile benefits to the customer, but said benefits weren't part of the metrics on which our department was getting judged, so at the VP level the willingness to devote resources was almost non-existent. There was lots of lip service given - especially about how a few people were able to hack together this thing and make it all the way to a Jeff Presentation. But ultimately the project froze. It was, actually, probably the main reason I decided to leave Amazon for a smaller, more agile startup, where if the CEO wants something done, by golly, it's gettin' done.
sumukh1 15y ago
Interesting read on Bezos. Did not know that he was like that. I added Yegge to my circles since he seems to tell a story well.
cavalcade 15y ago
Is it me or does this read like a big ass-kissing of Bezos after he tore him apart in the accidentally leaked memo? Not saying it isnt true but...
- staunch 15y ago
  He said it himself "I’ve always skirted any perceived shortcomings and focused on what they do well." Now he's doing that again, in a big way. He's saying "Bezos is a genius" and not saying "Bezos is a micromanaging asshole"
  - bad_user 15y ago
    Bezos is probably both a genius and a micromanaging asshole.
  - gjm11 15y ago
    And yet everyone reading it seems to have worked out that Bezos is a micromanaging asshole as well as a genius. Interesting, that.
- calibraxis 15y ago
  It's "professionalism". An ideology — an ism — that means not questioning/criticizing certain things. (At least not publicly, and often not even mentally either.) Yegge has a questioning mind and is communicative, but understands the limits that the ism places on him. For hacking this ideology, Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt is a good intro. (http://disciplined-minds.com http://disciplined-minds.com)
- dualboot 15y ago
  I don't know if I would describe the previous entry as "tearing him apart" because at the end of the day Bezos has still accomplished far more than just about anyone else we're likely to meet. No one is perfect and it is really our ability to play to our strengths and our weaknesses that defines our ability to succeed in life.
nethsix 15y ago
I think that is a good way to approach anything in life. Prepare hard for it but accept that there'll always be people smarter/better than you. That way, you will worry less about bombing out during presentations, and be more receptive to constructive criticisms.
danmaz74 15y ago
By the way, the most important part of the post is where he says that Google is following through on the problems he pointed out. I'd be curious to see what (if) will come out of this - if they will expose their internal services to third parties, that will be great news.
- david927 15y ago
  No, that was just polite talk. This isn't new -- this has been a glaring issue for a while. And if they were serious about it, Brin wouldn't have replied so flippantly. Google is just a one product company (with Gmail being the exception that proves the rule) lacking the humility and gravitas to be more.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    Android, Youtube, and Maps aren't products?
    - mbreese 15y ago
      While I assume they meant the one product was search, it would probably be accurate to stay that the product is advertising and that they rest exists to feed the beast. But I doubt that was the innuendo of their rant.
      - statictype 15y ago
        In the same way that television shows are all about advertising and the acting/stories/dialogue are just to 'feed the beast'? You're confusing what Google's main product is with how they make money. That's a bit insulting to the engineers at Google that make Search so good.
        iy56 15y ago
        It's perfectly reasonable to decline calling something a "product" if it doesn't make money. A widget company might produce a lot of memos in its daily operation, and might have its own cafeteria that produces food for its employees. But I think most people wouldn't count lunches or memos among the company's "products," no matter how good they might be.
harryf 15y ago
I wonder if Steve needs to move to marketing? He's done an awesome job here of highlighting one massive difference between GPlus and Facebook - that you can really publish publicly to the whole world, the way the web was intended.
- jaredsohn 15y ago
  This isn't a difference; you can do the same on Facebook. Here are a couple of examples: via a Facebook page called 'notes': http://www.facebook.com/notes/web20/robert-scoble-on-cloud-computing-bubble-or-revolution/10150270162038624?ref=nf http://www.facebook.com/notes/web20/robert-scoble-on-cloud-c... via user Scoble's wall: http://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10150358391274655 http://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10150358391274655. No Facebook account needed to view either.
  - timsally 15y ago
    Notes have been around for 5+ years and I've never seen them linked as news stories. In contrast, I've seen Google+ updates consistently submitted as news to HN and other sources. There is a significant difference between Google+ updates and Facebook Notes and it's worth thinking about why. I suspect it has to do with the fact that status updates and public posting in Google+ are the same interface. For Facebook, status updates are character limited and you have to click into the Notes tab in order to write something longer.
    - jaredsohn 15y ago
      While I agree those differences are important I think culture also plays a large role. Facebook started primarily as a website for college students to share privately with their friends. Google Plus started by emphasizing that you can choose who you want to share with (including the public) and shipped with a "subscribe-like" feature that allowed technical people to add many of the same tech celebrities that they were following on Twitter. Since it takes awhile to convert one's friends to a new service, for many tech people, reading public posts by these other tech people became the prominent way they use the service. You can mostly do the same things on each site (albeit at different levels of convenience), but their beginnings help shape how people think about and use the sites.
ot 15y ago
His description of presentations to Bezos reminds the infamous BillG reviews http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
- wlievens 15y ago
  IIRC there's a similar section in Microserfs but I could be mixing up things.
  - Maxious 15y ago
    If we're thinking of the same section, it's the start of the very first chapter which was also published in wired: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/microserfs_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/microserfs_pr.html
- jgroome 15y ago
  Enjoyed that link a lot. Thanks.
  - delinka 15y ago
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3139798 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3139798
- TruthPrevails 15y ago
  joelonsoftware posts are always great reads!
  - bendotc 15y ago
    Hey, I see you're new here. You may be wondering why your comment got down-voted. It's not that we're a community of jerks, I promise. People just really prize a high signal-to-noise ratio here, and while we appreciate that you enjoyed the link, a better way to express that without adding noise is to up-vote the comment. In general, you should post comments here only when the comment will provide value to someone else. That's largely the rubric by which it will be judged.
mun2mun 15y ago
So he validates the post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465882 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465882 posted here 3 years ago. Snapshot of the blog http://web.archive.org/web/20090211060734/http://blog.layer8.net/2009/01/i-was-trying-to-avoid-this.html http://web.archive.org/web/20090211060734/http://blog.layer8...
knowtheory 15y ago
My apologies for straying near politics but i think Yegge's just defined the best characterization of the 1% :P > In some sense you wouldn’t even be human anymore. People like Jeff are better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in human affairs. The difference between this description and Yegge's later description of Bezos as being like the Dread Pirate Roberts of Princess Bride fame, is that Roberts is a clever human putting on a very clever show to develop a reputation which does work for Roberts. Bezos on the other hand, by all accounts, actually does make people walk the plank. Whether he does it because he's a super-human alien intellect, or some other reason, doesn't change the fact that he's built up a climate of fear around him. If anything, describing him as a super-human alien disturbs me more than if he were acting out of the same motivation as the Dread Pirate Roberts.
- ovi256 15y ago
  Sorry, but you're way over-optimistic if you think the 1% has the kind of intelligence (and I'm not talking pure IQ) and focus Bezos has. Bezos is more like 0.01%. And I'd venture to say that the OWS movement wouldn't have much against Bezos. They're more against fratboys that rose to prominence and wealth through connections. And finance. Yeah, definitely finance. It's there that they sense some kind of unwarranted self-worth and wealth.
  - bigbird 15y ago
    Bezos started out on "Wall St", working at D.E. Shaw in NYC.
    - kalleboo 15y ago
      And then he left.
    - kanwisher 15y ago
      D.E Shaw was starting Internet startups in the early 90s, Bezos pitched them Amazon and they did Netzero instead so he headed west
    - 15y ago
adnam 15y ago
Is Steve trying to win the award for the brownest nose in the tech industry?
josscrowcroft 15y ago
Any copy of the original anywhere? As an aside: did he just say Franz Liszt was "famous-ish"?!
- narag 15y ago
  Any copy of the original anywhere? It's pasted in the top comment of the HN story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 As an aside: did he just say Franz Liszt was "famous-ish"?!" His style seems to be hyperbole and tongue-in-cheek mostly. I wouldn't take it very seriously.
- lini 15y ago
  The Liszt comparison is very timely - tomorrow is 200 years from his birthday :)
- defen 15y ago
  The fact that you reacted that way indicates that he's not actually as famous as you'd like him to be. If he'd described George Washington as a "famous-ish" general, you'd know he was being sarcastic.
  - keithpeter 15y ago
    I think this is e a cultural distance effect. I belong to a generation and live in a place where Liszt is part of the core. I recognise other places and generations may be different. Back on topic, I always used to smile when I saw the Lisp interpreter known as Franz Lisp load up. Pity they re-branded it.
zerostar07 15y ago
Liszt was "famous-ish"? No wonder nobody knows him today.
- gaius 15y ago
  Franz Lisp is named after him.
exim 15y ago
Gee.. This guy loves writing.
Maro 15y ago
> That is: assume he already knows everything about it. Assume he knows more than you do about it. Even if you have groundbreakingly original ideas in your material, just pretend it’s old hat for him. Write your prose in the succinct, direct, no-explanations way that you would write for a world-leading expert on the material. So if he knows everything, why am I writing for him?
- barrkel 15y ago
  How do you know your minions are any good when you delegate tasks to them? How do you find out if they can think for themselves?
- kstenerud 15y ago
  Because he doesn't know everything, obviously. But by the time you've given your presentation, in which you've thoughtfully omitted the long winded explanations that you'd give to someone who knows nothing about the subject, he'll have deeper insight into what you've presented than you do. And that's the true mark of intelligence.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- chad_oliver 15y ago
  Steve accidentally made an internal memo public. Oops, but luckily he was just the butt of jokes all week. To make up for telling everyone how bad amazon was, steve talks about Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos is super-smart, and giving a presentation to him will either go really well (unlikely) or really terribly (much more likely). Therefore, when presenting: assume Jeff knows the subject really well (because he does) and that your amazing revolutionary idea is obvious to him. Also know everything about your subject, and expect Jeff to notice any tiny mistake you make.
  - throwawaysnipe 15y ago
    Don't encourage the laziness of those who ask for tldrs. While your intentions are good, ultimately you're still an enabler.
    - chad_oliver 15y ago
      While your intentions are good, I think the requester gave a good reason for wanting a tldr. The post is now deleted, but I'm pretty sure he said he was looking after kids at the same time. I'm all for encouraging people to spend time with kids rather than reading long articles.
gbog 15y ago
I still can't believe the first post was not a fake. Gosh, it didn't contain any figures. How in a data-driven company can you propose some analysis without them?
- Confusion 15y ago
  The same way people don't need any figures to accept that a law prohibiting murder is a good idea. You demonstrate a sufficiently compelling argument and often only words are needed.
bad_user 15y ago
The last step before you’re ready to present to him is this: Delete every third paragraph. This must have been excruciatingly difficult for Yegge :-)
- moomin 15y ago
  Harder for the the guy with only two paragraphs, though...
  - shasta 15y ago
    Easier, I'd say. I was hoping "I deleted eery third paragraph" was going to be his response to "why isn't data mining on here?".
reven 15y ago
Link to the accidental post https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesv...
sajid 15y ago
Steve left out data mining and machine learning from his presentation and Bezos spotted it. Is that an example of Bezos' smarts or just a silly omission on Steve's part? Steve keeps emphasizing how smart Bezos is but I see no evidence of it in this post. It just seems like Bezos is good at spotting obvious mistakes people make.
wccrawford 15y ago
Actually, that is pretty close to how you should talk to -anyone- who likes thinking and does it well. If they have a question, they will ask it. You don't need to fill in every gap. (You need to KNOW it, but you don't need to say it.) I would leave out the 'delete every third paragraph' bit, though. Or change it to 'delete anything that can be inferred.'
ananthrk 15y ago
Steve, if you are reading this, any chance you can throw some light on the core skills a generalist engineer ought to know?
- TomasSedovic 15y ago
  I'll leave it up to Steve to answer that, but this may help you get the idea: https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-phone-screen-questions https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-pho... This is a Steve's post on how he conducts and what he expects from phone interviews. It's over seven years old so proceed with care -- it's possible that his views changed since then. Also, this is probably more of a bare minimum rather than the whole picture.
juliano_q 15y ago
Anyone could please paste the follow up here? All social networks blocked at my company.
- ot 15y ago
  Here it is: http://pastebin.com/sP8a3zHF http://pastebin.com/sP8a3zHF
- dmoney 15y ago
  Same here. It's annoying that people are now using the social network for content they'd otherwise post on a blog.
sapphirecat 15y ago
Contrary to what he wrote here, Steve actually has ragged on Amazon in the past, in particular in "Have You Ever Legalized Marijuana?" -- the imagery of Amazon doing things by burning through people like little tea-lights really stuck in my mind. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legalized-marijuana.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali...
skizm 15y ago
Steve Yegge just might help g+ steal some market share from facebook yet. Every time he releases something like this on g+ I end up spending a few minutes on the site that I would not have otherwise.
- jarek 15y ago
  I'm actually seeing a significant amount of longer-format posts (especially from technically-minded people) on Google+. It's a mix of a Facebook status update and a Facebook note and it's pretty easy to write and publish. (Steve's privacy setting slip-up notwithstanding...) In a way Google+ seems to be doing to Tumblr (and in lesser degree Posterous) what Facebook did to Myspace.
swah 15y ago
With a company the size of Google, isn't releasing something for every employee considered almost "making public" ?
hndl 15y ago
I feel this is a general perception of a leader at any large enough institution. The sense of what they've accomplished makes us perceive them as extraordinary. By the time we get to interact with them, we've created this larger than life image. Perhaps, inducing that into your team makes you a good leader. Perhaps not.
edw519 15y ago
Hey Steve, lots of Hacker News readers are just as smart as Jeff Bezos. Some of us may even be smarter. You may remove every third paragraph for him, but you can remove every third word for us and we can fill in the rest with our giant brains. Here goes: Last week accidentally posted internal rant service platforms my public account. It somehow viral, which nothing short stupefying given it was massive Wall Text. The thing still surreal. Amazingly, nothing happened to at Google. just laughed me a, all the up to top, for committed what be the of all screwups in history. But also listened, is super. I probably talk much it, but already figuring how to with some the issues raised. I I shouldn’t surprised. When I in my post that “does everything”, I meant. When they’re with any at all, it’s technical organizational or, they set to solve in a way. Anyway, whenever goes viral, start wondering it was or staged. accident was. While I no proof, can offer what I is the convincing evidence: the last and a years, I never once on Amazon. Even just months ago, a keynote I gave a conference, was pretty when I about my there. I’ve skirted any shortcomings and on what do well. I still a lot friends at. In fact place is of people admire and. And up now I prided myself my professionalism I have about Amazon. on the, even in internal memo, uncharacteristically unprofessional me. So been feeling guilty for past week. Without retracting I said, like to a more picture for. I’m going try to that picture some true that I’ve shared publicly. secondhand: it’s stuff I myself there. hope you’ll the stories, because it’s hell of interesting place. Amazon started Jeff, I’ll my stories one about. Amazon War #1: Jeff Over years I people give to Jeff and come bruised: emotionally, often career-ily. you came with a or a, you were for joy. to Jeff a gauntlet tends to people back the cave lick their and stay of the for a. I say and you think PowerPoint, no: he PowerPoint there years ago. not allowed the campus. you present Jeff, you it as. One day came time me to to Jeff. felt like... don’t know, how they around you you’re going meet the. People giving last-minute advice, you luck, you past of admins security guards. like you’re a movie. gladiator movie. I’d spent watching Jeff action before turn came, I had in an way. My presentation --, roughly speaking about the skills a engineer ought know -- was resounding success. loved it. everyone was me on back and me like just completed game-winning hail-mary or something. VP told privately: “Presentations Jeff never that well.” here’s the: I had suspected Jeff going to my presentation. see, I noticed two about him, him over years, that had either caught on, or else had not out how make the actionable. Here how I. Amazon people, note. This will you. I dead serious. prepare a for Jeff, make damn you know there is know about subject. Then a prose explaining the and solution(s). it exactly way you write it a leading or industry on the. is: assume already knows about it. he knows than you about it. if you groundbreakingly original in your, just pretend old hat him. Write prose in succinct, direct, way that would write a world-leading on the. almost done. last step you’re ready present to is this: every third. Now you’re to present! in the there was famous-ish composer/pianist Franz Liszt. is widely to have the greatest who ever. He could anything you him, including stuff not written for, like opera. He was staggeringly good sight-reading that brain was fully engaged the first. After that get bored start embellishing his own. Bezos is goddamned smart you have turn it a game him or be bored annoyed with. That was first realization him. Who how smart was before became a -- let’s just it was “frigging smart”, he did Amazon from. But for he’s had of people care of for him. doesn’t have do anything all except himself in morning and presentations all long. So really, REALLY at reading. He’s like Franz Liszt sight-reading presentations. you have start tearing whole paragraphs, even pages, make it for him. will fill the gaps without missing beat. And brain will less time get annoyed the slow of your. I mean, what it be like start off an incredibly person, arguably first-class genius, then somehow up in situation where have a view of industry battlefield ten years. only do have more than anyone, and access more information anyone else, also have long-term eagle-eye that only handful of in the enjoy. In sense you even be anymore. People Jeff are regarded as aliens with tangential interest human affairs. how do prepare a for a alien? Well, my second: He will you. Knowing about your is only first-line defense you. It’s armor that eat through the first minutes. He going to at least deep insight the subject, there on spot, and going to you look a complete. me folks, saw this time and, for years. Bezos has these incredibly, experienced domain surrounding him huge meetings, on a basis he of shit they never coming. It’s guaranteed facepalm. So I he was to think something that hadn’t. I know what might be, I’d spent trying to of everything. had reviewed material with of people. it didn’t. I knew was going blindside me, that’s what when you to Jeff. you assume coming, then not going catch you as off-guard. of course happened. I Data Mining. in the. He asked point-blank, very: “Why aren’t Mining and Learning in list?” And laughed right his face, sent a wave through stone-faced jury VPs who been listening silence, waiting a cue Jeff as whether he going to happy or was headed the salt. I laughed I was. He’d caught with my down around ankles, right front of, despite all excruciating weeks preparation. I even deleted a third the exposition to keep giant brain, but it matter. He’d it again, I looked a total in front everyone. It was awesome. So, of course couldn’t help. And I: “Yup, you me. I know why not in. It should. I’m a. I’ll add.” And he, and we on, and was great. the VPs smiling. It the hell of me they’d had wait for cue, but whatever. was good. have to: most people scared around because they waaaay too about trying keep their. People in positions sometimes a little much personal invested in success. Can imagine how it must for him be around people all long? But -- well, I I was to get every single. So fuck. Might as aim high go out a ball flame. That’s the “Dread Bezos” line from. I hard and fun, but day I worried they fire me the morning. it was kind of. But it sort of in a. I kept resume up date, and kept my up to, and I worried about something stupid ruining my. Because hey, were most going to me in morning.
Jun8 15y ago
I hate fear-driven cultures where presentations/meetings/casual talk with the CEO are treated as a gladiator match. In addition to Bezos, of course Jobs and (from what I read) Gates created such cultures. Another interesting, lesser known example was Col. Robert R.MacCormick, the editor for the Chicago Tribune for long years. He was described as "remote, coldly aloof, ruthless aristocrat, living in lonely magnificence, disdaining the common people... an exceptional man, a lone wolf whose strength and courage could be looked up to, but at the same time had to be feared; an eccentric, misanthropic genius whose haughty bearing, cold eye and steely reserve made it impossible to like or trust him." [Interesting anecdote: He had all the walls of his penthouse office at the Tribune covered with dark wood, including the door, so that after your meeting ended, you would have great difficulty finding the door to get back out, suffering under his humiliating gaze.] That doesn't mean that such draconian cultures are unsuccessful, just the opposite. The problem is, success becomes very much dependent on the quality of the leader(s), e.g. compare Libya and China; the performance becomes very brittle. The main paradox of humanity, of course, is why people continuously create such fear-driven, hero-worshiping hierarchies, although it causes great personal stress to them. Belief in a strong, super-genius, infallible leader that we can never equal and/or please, may be ingrained in our brains, be it religion or, as in this case, CEO worship.
- twoodfin 15y ago
  I don't think all the "gladitorial"-style preparation is necessarily fear-driven. To a great extent it's an acknowledgement that the CEO's time and attention is a valuable, limited resource and should be treated accordingly.
  - curiouskat 15y ago
    Is it the case that some people only respect and respond to fear? So Jobs, rather than waste time trying to figure out what makes every Apple employee tick (which wasn't a practical option considering Apple's size), he instituted a culture of fear and awe. This is akin to him wearing the same black turtleneck every day because he didn't want to waste brain cycles figuring out what to wear.
- 15y ago
brown9-2 15y ago
I'm curious how these "Jeff Presentations" go. Powerpoint presentations are banned, instead you have to write your arguments as an essay. So is the meeting essentially Bezos reading your writing, with the rest of the room waiting for any indication about the emperor's mood? Or does the presenter read from the prose as a script? Can any Amazon-ers give any insight?
- lurker17 15y ago
  Standard practice at Amazon is to quiet read the materials at the start of the meeting. I think the logic goes that you want to make sure everyone reads the material, so you may as well have everyone read the material at the same time, and discuss it when it is fresh in mind. As a related effect, it encourages people to write tightly focused documents that can be read in 15 minutes. It's not a horrible practice.
tlogan 15y ago
I agree with this description of Jeff Bezos:; I hear the similar stories. Actually, majority of successful leaders (founders, etc.) have s very strong "bullshit detector": for kind of bullshit one can use to receive promotions all way up to a director position - even up to VP. And it also shows that some people are not succeeding because they are paralyzed by fear of poverty.
jjm 15y ago
The one paragraph that hits home to me was the last: "That’s where the “Dread Pirate Bezos” line came from. I worked hard and had fun, but every day I honestly worried they might fire me in the morning. Sure, it was a kind of paranoia. But it was sort of healthy in a way. I kept my resume up to date, and I kept my skills up to date, and I never worried about saying something stupid and ruining my career. Because hey, they were most likely going to fire me in the morning." How else can you know your on the 'edge' of your own personal abilities? Nice to know that no matter who you are, those feelings don't go away... unless your Bezos (hey there has to be a few people like that around). :-)
barmstrong 15y ago
I wouldnt be surprised if Steve has a book deal coming.
ctdonath 15y ago
The issue of "so smart he needs a challenge so leave something for him to find" may overlap with "so narcissistic he needs something to smack you with so make a deliberate 'mistake' for him to find". I've found this quite effective; some people just need to find _something_ wrong with your idea/presentation/execution, so when they're going to review it, don't polish it to perfection - leave an error somewhere; you know what the mistake is, you know what the solution is, you'll take care of it right after it's noticed, and you'll give him _something_ to criticize so he doesn't have to invent some off-the-wall delusion which you must now accommodate. I'm not equating smart with narcissistic, just noting similar behavior with similar ways to mitigate damage vectors.
- ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
  I've always called this tactic "The Admiral's Pipe" after this story: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2005/05/12/417064.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2005/05/12/417064.aspx
  - thristian 15y ago
    It's also been called The Duck: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2349378/new-programming-jargon-you-coined/2444361#2444361 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2349378/new-programming-j...
- curiouskat 15y ago
  Yeah, the trick to getting some people to go along with something is getting them to think it's their idea. Leaving parts out so they can provide input and fill in the gaps is a way of guiding them down the path -- you're essentially manufacturing buy-in.
- protomyth 15y ago
  Leaving something minor but wrong for a government site visit team to find is not an uncommon tactic. They feel they did their job, and the site doesn't get written up for something truly insane. // no, I'm not still bitter about be written up for having too many (1 onsite, 3 offsite) secured backups.
jroseattle 15y ago
This post actually is more telling about the absurdity of working at Amazon than the post he took down.
linuxhansl 15y ago
Whatever. Jeff might be super smart, but apparently he is not smart enough to instill some happiness in the people he works with. I cannot help it, but I have little respect for people who do this, especially if they are super smart.
- iy56 15y ago
  Why is that a necessary quality for smartness? Amazon seems to be doing quite well in spite of it.
  - polymatter 15y ago
    "Smartness" itself is a nebulous and subjective concept. But in my book, a smart boss can motivate you without repeated verbal abuse or destroying your self esteem. Of course you can still be a successful boss otherwise.
  - j_baker 15y ago
    Just because you can be financially successful being an asshole doesn't make being an asshole ok. I think there's a subtle (but important) distinction. Smart people can get away with having poor people skills: accidentally offending people, putting their foot in their mouth, and forgetting about the human element in technology. That can be forgiven, and may even be an advantage. At the same time, there's a difference between having poor people skills and being an asshole: intentionally offending people, putting others down so you can get ahead, and willfully ignoring the human element make you an asshole. I think this often (but unfortunately not often enough) hurts people more than it helps. Bezos sounds like a bit of a grey area. However, I don't think you can make a decision on this based on the performance of amazon. He's certainly successful at what he does, but there are any number of people who have created success at too high a cost: demoralized people, broken laws, and ultimately a bigger burden is placed on society than the gain that made them successful.
barce 15y ago
Misdirection and inauthentic, that's what I call Steve Yegge's follow up piece. Internet attention spans suck. Remember his first post? Amazon is doing everything wrong and Google is doing everything right. If Bezos is a super intelligent alien, this begs the question, why is Amazon doing everything wrong? Also, Google didn't fire Steve Yegge because he did what their 6-figured marketing people couldn't: With a single post, Steve Yegge brought millions of uniques to Google+.
deleted 15y ago
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espeed 15y ago
The Bezos-presentation formula would probably work well for Y Combinator applications
varelse 15y ago
I worked at google for a couple months this year. My experience of their so-called open corporate culture was a bizarre mix of elements from William Gibson's _The Belonging Kind_ and Robot Chicken's _Our Newest Member, Calvin_. It was one of the loneliest and depressing experiences of my adult life (but with really good food). That said, it turned out that way because I was stupid and naive and let myself get flung into the russian roulette of their blind allocation process. This put me on a team doing work for which I had no real relevant experience and working under a manager who promptly forgot I existed for 3 months. I'd call my experience an outlier, and it all turned out well in the end when I fled the place for a better offer doing work far more relevant to my previous job experience, except that I keep running into others that had almost exactly the same thing happen to them. Amidst the hooplah of Larry and Sergei's Montessori for overgrown gifted kids, there's something very rotten, elitist, and ineffective going on at the googleplex and the initial frustration in Steve's rant hinted to me that deep down he knows this too. Perhaps I'm wrong. But I had such high hopes for the place and they were utterly dashed on the rocks.
- puredemo 15y ago
  >there's something very rotten, elitist, and ineffective going on at the googleplex and the initial frustration in Steve's rant hinted to me that deep down he knows this too. He does. He wrote the original to pander to them, while bashing Amazon.
scottjad 15y ago
A hyper-intelligent alien is supposedly in our midst and the only evidence given of his vast intelligence is that once upon a time he asked why two software concepts that have been used prominently for years to great profit in his software business that's been running for years were left off a list? Really?
krookoo 15y ago
I doubt it was actually "accidental".

558 points by janzer 15y ago

Although it was a great read, to me it lacked a kind of authenticity. The first Yegge post felt real, authentic, natural and fully charged. This second one although better formatted and edited, lacked something. It just seemed obigatory and bland. It is rather amazing that you can feel emotions through words. Or am I the only one thinking this way?

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
I think you're being harsh. I think it was probably more considered but I'm guessing that everything he's written since THAT post has been more considered - it would be a completely natural reaction to having accidentally laid yourself bare. After all whom amongst us having accidentally forwarded an e-mail to the wrong person hasn't got a little more careful about what we say for a while afterwards? But I still think it sounds genuine and honest, just a little more polished.
- OoTheNigerian 15y ago
  Ok, maybe considered is less harsh than bland. But do you think it is a good thing? The first time I noticed this was when I listed to the original and then studio version of 2 Pac's "Hit 'em up". In the first he was really and truly angry and you could feel it. The second version was 'just there'. When actors and actresses get "into character" it is really clear. They mean what they act and it seems natural. let us just say he was "in character" in the first post but not in the second.
  - frek818 15y ago
    Nice analogy :)
  - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
    The problem is that anger often sounds more authentic but anyone who has ever been angry will testify that what you say when you're angry (or even just irritated) doesn't necessarily reflect your actual view, just one facet of it. Yegge's original piece was making a specific point and he came out with examples that supported that but that doesn't mean that those examples represent Yegge's overall view of Bezos and it's reasonable that he might want to throw out the other side of it. In terms of whether it's honest - from both pieces I think it's fairly clear that Yegge doesn't believe that Bezos gives a shit what Yegge thinks so I see no reason why Yegge wouldn't be being truthful. But even if Yegge was toning himself down, I don't have an issue with that. I think that among some in the tech community there is a feeling that "honesty" and "truth" tend to trump everything. While that's great in theory the baggage (usually personal offence) that comes with it has to be considered. Ultimately life is about getting stuff done and for most of us who aren't Jobs or Bezos level genius where brutal honesty will be forgiven, a "polished" truth will often get us better responses from others than it's more brutal counterpart. If that's the case we all have to ask ourselves do you want to be right, or do you want to get things done? Note: I'm not talking about lying here, I'm just talking about how you present the truth.
    - OoTheNigerian 15y ago
      So how do you suggest you convey true emotions through words while being diplomatic? As we both agree 'considered' posts can eliminate the true feeling. I do not think only anger can be conveyed. I am not being specific about this very situation. And I agree that being diplomatic can be more effective most times. Edited: To provide contest for question.
      - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
        I don't think considered posts do eliminate the true feeling. They eliminate the visceral, immediate reaction but that's only one part of the truth. If you're angry (or happy) at someone that's certainly a true feeling but is it any truer than the way you feel 10 minutes later when you've calmed down a bit and considered things? If a colleague irritates me and I shout at him sure that's a representation of part of what I feel at that moment, but it doesn't represent the fact that ultimately I respect them and they normally do great work. So is shouting at them really my true feeling or just one small element of it that ultimately doesn't represent what I feel very well at all? Ultimately though I think you have to ask yourself what am I try to achieve, how is what I'm going to say going to achieve that and am I happy that it really does represent "the truth" or is it just a knee jerk reaction (good or bad).
- mmahemoff 15y ago
  When you work at a high profile company, anything you say about another high-profile competitor must be very considered. Steve has always been more frank than most commentators in Google and other high profile companies, but even if the previous post hadn't gone public, a story about Bezos did need to be considered. And full respect to him for saying this much. For a company so successful, one hears very little about how Amazon runs internally. Looking forward to Steve's next instalment.
rehack 15y ago
I, like many of you, like Steve Yegge's eloquence. But not always agree with his logic. I have issues with both his posts (the leaked one and this), on the logic front. a) In the earlier accidentally leaked one, I felt he was being too harsh on Jeff Bezos, in the UI design story he stated. Even having only the data points of Yegge's essay, I could understand Bezos point as far as the UI changes were concerned: 'Why mend it if its not broken?' Also Jeff Bezos, had a vision of building Amazon into a huge company, right from the start. He comes across as a rare _true visionary_, for many reasons. Two simple ones: success with Amazon.com and then with EC2 . So I did not like at all when Steve sort of derided him in his post. b) In this second post, it seems to me, that Steve is _making it up_ for the damage done in the first one. Making good use of his _eloquence_ to convert a single & perhaps boring meeting experience he had with Bezos, into an interesting one.
- mark_up 15y ago
  > 'Why mend it if its not broken?' But it was broken. Amazon did amazingly not because of their UI, but in spite of it.

spicyj 15y ago

Combined with all the talk of Isaacson's new Steve Jobs biography, makes me want to read an in-depth biography of Bezos's life.

bgarbiak 15y ago
Comes out next week: http://www.amazon.com/One-Click-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon-com/dp/1591843758/ http://www.amazon.com/One-Click-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon-com/dp/159...
- davidw 15y ago
  I'm actually more interested to read this, for several reasons: Much of the "Steve Jobs story" is quite public already - it's stuff that you just can't help knowing. Reed, Wozniak, kicked out of Apple, Next, Pixar, etc... I'm sure the bio will have some new details, but the basic plot is pretty well known. Jeff Bezos, OTOH, is someone I know relatively little about. Also, given that my nascent LiberWriter business deals with Kindle formatting, decisions those guys are making have a very real impact on me.
samwillis 15y ago
I read this book http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Get-Fast-Robert-Spector/dp/0066620422/ http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Get-Fast-Robert-Spector/dp/... back soon after it came out after finding it randomly in my school library and remember thinking it was good. Its a little old now though.

simondlr 15y ago

Well written! Is Jeff Bezos really like he paints him to be?

cookiecaper 15y ago
I have no relevant experience with anything, but my impression is that usually people who gush on about the superhuman abilities of an individual just have a skewed perspective. I've been on the receiving end of that kind of gush a time or two and I don't really feel that it's accurate in my case, and I don't believe that it's accurate in any other case. The people that talk just can't see the inadequacies and the common weaknesses that are visible from a better-informed context. Jeff Bezos may indeed be smart, and he may indeed come up with things that "domain experts" haven't yet thought of, but the explanations are usually much more timid and general than "Jeff is practically a giant-brained alien".
- danmaz74 15y ago
  On a much smaller scale, my company's founder and CEO is viewed as one such super-intelligent alien. And for sure he is very smart and has an incredible memory. But I can guarantee you that he doesn't know "everything" at all, but this is how he is perceived by many.
- msellout 15y ago
  I've had that same experience -- that people exclaim how certain CEOs are so incredibly brilliant ("cerebral" was one comment that stuck in my memory), but when you meet them they just seem like any other smart person who has studied a domain for a long time.
potatolicious 15y ago
I've presented to Bezos once. It went about the same as Yegge's experience, except I didn't have his balls to laugh in my CEO's face ;) The whole thing felt like I was meeting the President - layer after layer of aides and executive assistants, tons of security, and briefings on where to sit, where to not sit, where to stand, where to not stand, look him in the eye when you shake his hand, etc etc. It was kind of surreal. I haven't presented to any other big-corp CEO other than him, so I can't really draw any comparisons. One thing Yegge brought up that I also felt the same about walking out of that room: Jeff is really smart, like really, really smart. I was warned about this beforehand and spent two weeks poring over every single detail, potential feature, everything about the idea I was presenting. He still managed to come out of left field with relevant questions that none of us had even thought of. So I can corroborate that side of the story. The comparison to Liszt also seems apt - before we were even done presenting, he'd already grokked it to a surprising degree, and was already expanding upon the idea in out loud. You could hear my manager scribbling like a madman trying to get all of this down. This might not seem especially amazing, but the Director and VP level people I presented the very same idea to had not the same depth of insight. I remember being very impressed on the spot. I'm no longer with Amazon, and I don't particularly want to go back - but that's not due to bad top management, IMO Bezos is one of the keenest tech CEOs around. He might be the closest thing we have left to Jobs. To balance it out a bit and not make this seems like a complete Amazon love-fest: Jeff loved our idea, he gave us the green light right away. We left that room ecstatic thinking we were about to change the online retail experience forever. Then middle management showed up. There was political infighting about who owns the project - it straddled multiple disciplines (hence why it was so groundbreaking), and there was a mixture of both hot-potato-oh-god-you-take-it and this-is-amazing-we-need-the-credit-on-this. The teams that were interested were unwilling to yield to other teams that (rightfully, given their expertise and domain) wanted in, and some teams we needed support from kept punting it since it wasn't in their yearly plan (put together, well, a year or more ago). The project would have provided very powerfully tangible, very high-profile benefits to the customer, but said benefits weren't part of the metrics on which our department was getting judged, so at the VP level the willingness to devote resources was almost non-existent. There was lots of lip service given - especially about how a few people were able to hack together this thing and make it all the way to a Jeff Presentation. But ultimately the project froze. It was, actually, probably the main reason I decided to leave Amazon for a smaller, more agile startup, where if the CEO wants something done, by golly, it's gettin' done.

sumukh1 15y ago

Interesting read on Bezos. Did not know that he was like that. I added Yegge to my circles since he seems to tell a story well.

cavalcade 15y ago

Is it me or does this read like a big ass-kissing of Bezos after he tore him apart in the accidentally leaked memo? Not saying it isnt true but...

staunch 15y ago
He said it himself "I’ve always skirted any perceived shortcomings and focused on what they do well." Now he's doing that again, in a big way. He's saying "Bezos is a genius" and not saying "Bezos is a micromanaging asshole"
- bad_user 15y ago
  Bezos is probably both a genius and a micromanaging asshole.
- gjm11 15y ago
  And yet everyone reading it seems to have worked out that Bezos is a micromanaging asshole as well as a genius. Interesting, that.
calibraxis 15y ago
It's "professionalism". An ideology — an ism — that means not questioning/criticizing certain things. (At least not publicly, and often not even mentally either.) Yegge has a questioning mind and is communicative, but understands the limits that the ism places on him. For hacking this ideology, Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt is a good intro. (http://disciplined-minds.com http://disciplined-minds.com)
dualboot 15y ago
I don't know if I would describe the previous entry as "tearing him apart" because at the end of the day Bezos has still accomplished far more than just about anyone else we're likely to meet. No one is perfect and it is really our ability to play to our strengths and our weaknesses that defines our ability to succeed in life.

nethsix 15y ago

I think that is a good way to approach anything in life. Prepare hard for it but accept that there'll always be people smarter/better than you. That way, you will worry less about bombing out during presentations, and be more receptive to constructive criticisms.

danmaz74 15y ago

By the way, the most important part of the post is where he says that Google is following through on the problems he pointed out. I'd be curious to see what (if) will come out of this - if they will expose their internal services to third parties, that will be great news.

david927 15y ago
No, that was just polite talk. This isn't new -- this has been a glaring issue for a while. And if they were serious about it, Brin wouldn't have replied so flippantly. Google is just a one product company (with Gmail being the exception that proves the rule) lacking the humility and gravitas to be more.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Android, Youtube, and Maps aren't products?
  - mbreese 15y ago
    While I assume they meant the one product was search, it would probably be accurate to stay that the product is advertising and that they rest exists to feed the beast. But I doubt that was the innuendo of their rant.
    - statictype 15y ago
      In the same way that television shows are all about advertising and the acting/stories/dialogue are just to 'feed the beast'? You're confusing what Google's main product is with how they make money. That's a bit insulting to the engineers at Google that make Search so good.
      - iy56 15y ago
        It's perfectly reasonable to decline calling something a "product" if it doesn't make money. A widget company might produce a lot of memos in its daily operation, and might have its own cafeteria that produces food for its employees. But I think most people wouldn't count lunches or memos among the company's "products," no matter how good they might be.

harryf 15y ago

I wonder if Steve needs to move to marketing? He's done an awesome job here of highlighting one massive difference between GPlus and Facebook - that you can really publish publicly to the whole world, the way the web was intended.

jaredsohn 15y ago
This isn't a difference; you can do the same on Facebook. Here are a couple of examples: via a Facebook page called 'notes': http://www.facebook.com/notes/web20/robert-scoble-on-cloud-computing-bubble-or-revolution/10150270162038624?ref=nf http://www.facebook.com/notes/web20/robert-scoble-on-cloud-c... via user Scoble's wall: http://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10150358391274655 http://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10150358391274655. No Facebook account needed to view either.
- timsally 15y ago
  Notes have been around for 5+ years and I've never seen them linked as news stories. In contrast, I've seen Google+ updates consistently submitted as news to HN and other sources. There is a significant difference between Google+ updates and Facebook Notes and it's worth thinking about why. I suspect it has to do with the fact that status updates and public posting in Google+ are the same interface. For Facebook, status updates are character limited and you have to click into the Notes tab in order to write something longer.
  - jaredsohn 15y ago
    While I agree those differences are important I think culture also plays a large role. Facebook started primarily as a website for college students to share privately with their friends. Google Plus started by emphasizing that you can choose who you want to share with (including the public) and shipped with a "subscribe-like" feature that allowed technical people to add many of the same tech celebrities that they were following on Twitter. Since it takes awhile to convert one's friends to a new service, for many tech people, reading public posts by these other tech people became the prominent way they use the service. You can mostly do the same things on each site (albeit at different levels of convenience), but their beginnings help shape how people think about and use the sites.

ot 15y ago

His description of presentations to Bezos reminds the infamous BillG reviews http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html

wlievens 15y ago
IIRC there's a similar section in Microserfs but I could be mixing up things.
- Maxious 15y ago
  If we're thinking of the same section, it's the start of the very first chapter which was also published in wired: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/microserfs_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/microserfs_pr.html
jgroome 15y ago
Enjoyed that link a lot. Thanks.
- delinka 15y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3139798 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3139798
TruthPrevails 15y ago
joelonsoftware posts are always great reads!
- bendotc 15y ago
  Hey, I see you're new here. You may be wondering why your comment got down-voted. It's not that we're a community of jerks, I promise. People just really prize a high signal-to-noise ratio here, and while we appreciate that you enjoyed the link, a better way to express that without adding noise is to up-vote the comment. In general, you should post comments here only when the comment will provide value to someone else. That's largely the rubric by which it will be judged.

mun2mun 15y ago

So he validates the post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465882 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465882 posted here 3 years ago. Snapshot of the blog http://web.archive.org/web/20090211060734/http://blog.layer8.net/2009/01/i-was-trying-to-avoid-this.html http://web.archive.org/web/20090211060734/http://blog.layer8...

knowtheory 15y ago

My apologies for straying near politics but i think Yegge's just defined the best characterization of the 1% :P > In some sense you wouldn’t even be human anymore. People like Jeff are better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in human affairs. The difference between this description and Yegge's later description of Bezos as being like the Dread Pirate Roberts of Princess Bride fame, is that Roberts is a clever human putting on a very clever show to develop a reputation which does work for Roberts. Bezos on the other hand, by all accounts, actually does make people walk the plank. Whether he does it because he's a super-human alien intellect, or some other reason, doesn't change the fact that he's built up a climate of fear around him. If anything, describing him as a super-human alien disturbs me more than if he were acting out of the same motivation as the Dread Pirate Roberts.

ovi256 15y ago
Sorry, but you're way over-optimistic if you think the 1% has the kind of intelligence (and I'm not talking pure IQ) and focus Bezos has. Bezos is more like 0.01%. And I'd venture to say that the OWS movement wouldn't have much against Bezos. They're more against fratboys that rose to prominence and wealth through connections. And finance. Yeah, definitely finance. It's there that they sense some kind of unwarranted self-worth and wealth.
- bigbird 15y ago
  Bezos started out on "Wall St", working at D.E. Shaw in NYC.
  - kalleboo 15y ago
    And then he left.
  - kanwisher 15y ago
    D.E Shaw was starting Internet startups in the early 90s, Bezos pitched them Amazon and they did Netzero instead so he headed west
  - 15y ago

adnam 15y ago

Is Steve trying to win the award for the brownest nose in the tech industry?

josscrowcroft 15y ago

Any copy of the original anywhere? As an aside: did he just say Franz Liszt was "famous-ish"?!

narag 15y ago
Any copy of the original anywhere? It's pasted in the top comment of the HN story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 As an aside: did he just say Franz Liszt was "famous-ish"?!" His style seems to be hyperbole and tongue-in-cheek mostly. I wouldn't take it very seriously.
lini 15y ago
The Liszt comparison is very timely - tomorrow is 200 years from his birthday :)
defen 15y ago
The fact that you reacted that way indicates that he's not actually as famous as you'd like him to be. If he'd described George Washington as a "famous-ish" general, you'd know he was being sarcastic.
- keithpeter 15y ago
  I think this is e a cultural distance effect. I belong to a generation and live in a place where Liszt is part of the core. I recognise other places and generations may be different. Back on topic, I always used to smile when I saw the Lisp interpreter known as Franz Lisp load up. Pity they re-branded it.

zerostar07 15y ago

Liszt was "famous-ish"? No wonder nobody knows him today.

gaius 15y ago
Franz Lisp is named after him.

exim 15y ago

Gee.. This guy loves writing.

Maro 15y ago

> That is: assume he already knows everything about it. Assume he knows more than you do about it. Even if you have groundbreakingly original ideas in your material, just pretend it’s old hat for him. Write your prose in the succinct, direct, no-explanations way that you would write for a world-leading expert on the material. So if he knows everything, why am I writing for him?

barrkel 15y ago
How do you know your minions are any good when you delegate tasks to them? How do you find out if they can think for themselves?
kstenerud 15y ago
Because he doesn't know everything, obviously. But by the time you've given your presentation, in which you've thoughtfully omitted the long winded explanations that you'd give to someone who knows nothing about the subject, he'll have deeper insight into what you've presented than you do. And that's the true mark of intelligence.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

chad_oliver 15y ago
Steve accidentally made an internal memo public. Oops, but luckily he was just the butt of jokes all week. To make up for telling everyone how bad amazon was, steve talks about Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos is super-smart, and giving a presentation to him will either go really well (unlikely) or really terribly (much more likely). Therefore, when presenting: assume Jeff knows the subject really well (because he does) and that your amazing revolutionary idea is obvious to him. Also know everything about your subject, and expect Jeff to notice any tiny mistake you make.
- throwawaysnipe 15y ago
  Don't encourage the laziness of those who ask for tldrs. While your intentions are good, ultimately you're still an enabler.
  - chad_oliver 15y ago
    While your intentions are good, I think the requester gave a good reason for wanting a tldr. The post is now deleted, but I'm pretty sure he said he was looking after kids at the same time. I'm all for encouraging people to spend time with kids rather than reading long articles.

gbog 15y ago

I still can't believe the first post was not a fake. Gosh, it didn't contain any figures. How in a data-driven company can you propose some analysis without them?

Confusion 15y ago
The same way people don't need any figures to accept that a law prohibiting murder is a good idea. You demonstrate a sufficiently compelling argument and often only words are needed.

bad_user 15y ago

The last step before you’re ready to present to him is this: Delete every third paragraph. This must have been excruciatingly difficult for Yegge :-)

moomin 15y ago
Harder for the the guy with only two paragraphs, though...
- shasta 15y ago
  Easier, I'd say. I was hoping "I deleted eery third paragraph" was going to be his response to "why isn't data mining on here?".

reven 15y ago

Link to the accidental post https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesv...

sajid 15y ago

Steve left out data mining and machine learning from his presentation and Bezos spotted it. Is that an example of Bezos' smarts or just a silly omission on Steve's part? Steve keeps emphasizing how smart Bezos is but I see no evidence of it in this post. It just seems like Bezos is good at spotting obvious mistakes people make.

wccrawford 15y ago

Actually, that is pretty close to how you should talk to -anyone- who likes thinking and does it well. If they have a question, they will ask it. You don't need to fill in every gap. (You need to KNOW it, but you don't need to say it.) I would leave out the 'delete every third paragraph' bit, though. Or change it to 'delete anything that can be inferred.'

ananthrk 15y ago

Steve, if you are reading this, any chance you can throw some light on the core skills a generalist engineer ought to know?

TomasSedovic 15y ago
I'll leave it up to Steve to answer that, but this may help you get the idea: https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-phone-screen-questions https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-pho... This is a Steve's post on how he conducts and what he expects from phone interviews. It's over seven years old so proceed with care -- it's possible that his views changed since then. Also, this is probably more of a bare minimum rather than the whole picture.

juliano_q 15y ago

Anyone could please paste the follow up here? All social networks blocked at my company.

ot 15y ago
Here it is: http://pastebin.com/sP8a3zHF http://pastebin.com/sP8a3zHF
dmoney 15y ago
Same here. It's annoying that people are now using the social network for content they'd otherwise post on a blog.

sapphirecat 15y ago

Contrary to what he wrote here, Steve actually has ragged on Amazon in the past, in particular in "Have You Ever Legalized Marijuana?" -- the imagery of Amazon doing things by burning through people like little tea-lights really stuck in my mind. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legalized-marijuana.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali...

skizm 15y ago

Steve Yegge just might help g+ steal some market share from facebook yet. Every time he releases something like this on g+ I end up spending a few minutes on the site that I would not have otherwise.

jarek 15y ago
I'm actually seeing a significant amount of longer-format posts (especially from technically-minded people) on Google+. It's a mix of a Facebook status update and a Facebook note and it's pretty easy to write and publish. (Steve's privacy setting slip-up notwithstanding...) In a way Google+ seems to be doing to Tumblr (and in lesser degree Posterous) what Facebook did to Myspace.

swah 15y ago

With a company the size of Google, isn't releasing something for every employee considered almost "making public" ?

hndl 15y ago

I feel this is a general perception of a leader at any large enough institution. The sense of what they've accomplished makes us perceive them as extraordinary. By the time we get to interact with them, we've created this larger than life image. Perhaps, inducing that into your team makes you a good leader. Perhaps not.

edw519 15y ago

Hey Steve, lots of Hacker News readers are just as smart as Jeff Bezos. Some of us may even be smarter. You may remove every third paragraph for him, but you can remove every third word for us and we can fill in the rest with our giant brains. Here goes: Last week accidentally posted internal rant service platforms my public account. It somehow viral, which nothing short stupefying given it was massive Wall Text. The thing still surreal. Amazingly, nothing happened to at Google. just laughed me a, all the up to top, for committed what be the of all screwups in history. But also listened, is super. I probably talk much it, but already figuring how to with some the issues raised. I I shouldn’t surprised. When I in my post that “does everything”, I meant. When they’re with any at all, it’s technical organizational or, they set to solve in a way. Anyway, whenever goes viral, start wondering it was or staged. accident was. While I no proof, can offer what I is the convincing evidence: the last and a years, I never once on Amazon. Even just months ago, a keynote I gave a conference, was pretty when I about my there. I’ve skirted any shortcomings and on what do well. I still a lot friends at. In fact place is of people admire and. And up now I prided myself my professionalism I have about Amazon. on the, even in internal memo, uncharacteristically unprofessional me. So been feeling guilty for past week. Without retracting I said, like to a more picture for. I’m going try to that picture some true that I’ve shared publicly. secondhand: it’s stuff I myself there. hope you’ll the stories, because it’s hell of interesting place. Amazon started Jeff, I’ll my stories one about. Amazon War #1: Jeff Over years I people give to Jeff and come bruised: emotionally, often career-ily. you came with a or a, you were for joy. to Jeff a gauntlet tends to people back the cave lick their and stay of the for a. I say and you think PowerPoint, no: he PowerPoint there years ago. not allowed the campus. you present Jeff, you it as. One day came time me to to Jeff. felt like... don’t know, how they around you you’re going meet the. People giving last-minute advice, you luck, you past of admins security guards. like you’re a movie. gladiator movie. I’d spent watching Jeff action before turn came, I had in an way. My presentation --, roughly speaking about the skills a engineer ought know -- was resounding success. loved it. everyone was me on back and me like just completed game-winning hail-mary or something. VP told privately: “Presentations Jeff never that well.” here’s the: I had suspected Jeff going to my presentation. see, I noticed two about him, him over years, that had either caught on, or else had not out how make the actionable. Here how I. Amazon people, note. This will you. I dead serious. prepare a for Jeff, make damn you know there is know about subject. Then a prose explaining the and solution(s). it exactly way you write it a leading or industry on the. is: assume already knows about it. he knows than you about it. if you groundbreakingly original in your, just pretend old hat him. Write prose in succinct, direct, way that would write a world-leading on the. almost done. last step you’re ready present to is this: every third. Now you’re to present! in the there was famous-ish composer/pianist Franz Liszt. is widely to have the greatest who ever. He could anything you him, including stuff not written for, like opera. He was staggeringly good sight-reading that brain was fully engaged the first. After that get bored start embellishing his own. Bezos is goddamned smart you have turn it a game him or be bored annoyed with. That was first realization him. Who how smart was before became a -- let’s just it was “frigging smart”, he did Amazon from. But for he’s had of people care of for him. doesn’t have do anything all except himself in morning and presentations all long. So really, REALLY at reading. He’s like Franz Liszt sight-reading presentations. you have start tearing whole paragraphs, even pages, make it for him. will fill the gaps without missing beat. And brain will less time get annoyed the slow of your. I mean, what it be like start off an incredibly person, arguably first-class genius, then somehow up in situation where have a view of industry battlefield ten years. only do have more than anyone, and access more information anyone else, also have long-term eagle-eye that only handful of in the enjoy. In sense you even be anymore. People Jeff are regarded as aliens with tangential interest human affairs. how do prepare a for a alien? Well, my second: He will you. Knowing about your is only first-line defense you. It’s armor that eat through the first minutes. He going to at least deep insight the subject, there on spot, and going to you look a complete. me folks, saw this time and, for years. Bezos has these incredibly, experienced domain surrounding him huge meetings, on a basis he of shit they never coming. It’s guaranteed facepalm. So I he was to think something that hadn’t. I know what might be, I’d spent trying to of everything. had reviewed material with of people. it didn’t. I knew was going blindside me, that’s what when you to Jeff. you assume coming, then not going catch you as off-guard. of course happened. I Data Mining. in the. He asked point-blank, very: “Why aren’t Mining and Learning in list?” And laughed right his face, sent a wave through stone-faced jury VPs who been listening silence, waiting a cue Jeff as whether he going to happy or was headed the salt. I laughed I was. He’d caught with my down around ankles, right front of, despite all excruciating weeks preparation. I even deleted a third the exposition to keep giant brain, but it matter. He’d it again, I looked a total in front everyone. It was awesome. So, of course couldn’t help. And I: “Yup, you me. I know why not in. It should. I’m a. I’ll add.” And he, and we on, and was great. the VPs smiling. It the hell of me they’d had wait for cue, but whatever. was good. have to: most people scared around because they waaaay too about trying keep their. People in positions sometimes a little much personal invested in success. Can imagine how it must for him be around people all long? But -- well, I I was to get every single. So fuck. Might as aim high go out a ball flame. That’s the “Dread Bezos” line from. I hard and fun, but day I worried they fire me the morning. it was kind of. But it sort of in a. I kept resume up date, and kept my up to, and I worried about something stupid ruining my. Because hey, were most going to me in morning.

Jun8 15y ago

I hate fear-driven cultures where presentations/meetings/casual talk with the CEO are treated as a gladiator match. In addition to Bezos, of course Jobs and (from what I read) Gates created such cultures. Another interesting, lesser known example was Col. Robert R.MacCormick, the editor for the Chicago Tribune for long years. He was described as "remote, coldly aloof, ruthless aristocrat, living in lonely magnificence, disdaining the common people... an exceptional man, a lone wolf whose strength and courage could be looked up to, but at the same time had to be feared; an eccentric, misanthropic genius whose haughty bearing, cold eye and steely reserve made it impossible to like or trust him." [Interesting anecdote: He had all the walls of his penthouse office at the Tribune covered with dark wood, including the door, so that after your meeting ended, you would have great difficulty finding the door to get back out, suffering under his humiliating gaze.] That doesn't mean that such draconian cultures are unsuccessful, just the opposite. The problem is, success becomes very much dependent on the quality of the leader(s), e.g. compare Libya and China; the performance becomes very brittle. The main paradox of humanity, of course, is why people continuously create such fear-driven, hero-worshiping hierarchies, although it causes great personal stress to them. Belief in a strong, super-genius, infallible leader that we can never equal and/or please, may be ingrained in our brains, be it religion or, as in this case, CEO worship.

twoodfin 15y ago
I don't think all the "gladitorial"-style preparation is necessarily fear-driven. To a great extent it's an acknowledgement that the CEO's time and attention is a valuable, limited resource and should be treated accordingly.
- curiouskat 15y ago
  Is it the case that some people only respect and respond to fear? So Jobs, rather than waste time trying to figure out what makes every Apple employee tick (which wasn't a practical option considering Apple's size), he instituted a culture of fear and awe. This is akin to him wearing the same black turtleneck every day because he didn't want to waste brain cycles figuring out what to wear.
15y ago

brown9-2 15y ago

I'm curious how these "Jeff Presentations" go. Powerpoint presentations are banned, instead you have to write your arguments as an essay. So is the meeting essentially Bezos reading your writing, with the rest of the room waiting for any indication about the emperor's mood? Or does the presenter read from the prose as a script? Can any Amazon-ers give any insight?

lurker17 15y ago
Standard practice at Amazon is to quiet read the materials at the start of the meeting. I think the logic goes that you want to make sure everyone reads the material, so you may as well have everyone read the material at the same time, and discuss it when it is fresh in mind. As a related effect, it encourages people to write tightly focused documents that can be read in 15 minutes. It's not a horrible practice.

tlogan 15y ago

I agree with this description of Jeff Bezos:; I hear the similar stories. Actually, majority of successful leaders (founders, etc.) have s very strong "bullshit detector": for kind of bullshit one can use to receive promotions all way up to a director position - even up to VP. And it also shows that some people are not succeeding because they are paralyzed by fear of poverty.

jjm 15y ago

The one paragraph that hits home to me was the last: "That’s where the “Dread Pirate Bezos” line came from. I worked hard and had fun, but every day I honestly worried they might fire me in the morning. Sure, it was a kind of paranoia. But it was sort of healthy in a way. I kept my resume up to date, and I kept my skills up to date, and I never worried about saying something stupid and ruining my career. Because hey, they were most likely going to fire me in the morning." How else can you know your on the 'edge' of your own personal abilities? Nice to know that no matter who you are, those feelings don't go away... unless your Bezos (hey there has to be a few people like that around). :-)

barmstrong 15y ago

I wouldnt be surprised if Steve has a book deal coming.

ctdonath 15y ago

The issue of "so smart he needs a challenge so leave something for him to find" may overlap with "so narcissistic he needs something to smack you with so make a deliberate 'mistake' for him to find". I've found this quite effective; some people just need to find _something_ wrong with your idea/presentation/execution, so when they're going to review it, don't polish it to perfection - leave an error somewhere; you know what the mistake is, you know what the solution is, you'll take care of it right after it's noticed, and you'll give him _something_ to criticize so he doesn't have to invent some off-the-wall delusion which you must now accommodate. I'm not equating smart with narcissistic, just noting similar behavior with similar ways to mitigate damage vectors.

ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
I've always called this tactic "The Admiral's Pipe" after this story: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2005/05/12/417064.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2005/05/12/417064.aspx
- thristian 15y ago
  It's also been called The Duck: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2349378/new-programming-jargon-you-coined/2444361#2444361 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2349378/new-programming-j...
curiouskat 15y ago
Yeah, the trick to getting some people to go along with something is getting them to think it's their idea. Leaving parts out so they can provide input and fill in the gaps is a way of guiding them down the path -- you're essentially manufacturing buy-in.
protomyth 15y ago
Leaving something minor but wrong for a government site visit team to find is not an uncommon tactic. They feel they did their job, and the site doesn't get written up for something truly insane. // no, I'm not still bitter about be written up for having too many (1 onsite, 3 offsite) secured backups.

jroseattle 15y ago

This post actually is more telling about the absurdity of working at Amazon than the post he took down.

linuxhansl 15y ago

Whatever. Jeff might be super smart, but apparently he is not smart enough to instill some happiness in the people he works with. I cannot help it, but I have little respect for people who do this, especially if they are super smart.

iy56 15y ago
Why is that a necessary quality for smartness? Amazon seems to be doing quite well in spite of it.
- polymatter 15y ago
  "Smartness" itself is a nebulous and subjective concept. But in my book, a smart boss can motivate you without repeated verbal abuse or destroying your self esteem. Of course you can still be a successful boss otherwise.
- j_baker 15y ago
  Just because you can be financially successful being an asshole doesn't make being an asshole ok. I think there's a subtle (but important) distinction. Smart people can get away with having poor people skills: accidentally offending people, putting their foot in their mouth, and forgetting about the human element in technology. That can be forgiven, and may even be an advantage. At the same time, there's a difference between having poor people skills and being an asshole: intentionally offending people, putting others down so you can get ahead, and willfully ignoring the human element make you an asshole. I think this often (but unfortunately not often enough) hurts people more than it helps. Bezos sounds like a bit of a grey area. However, I don't think you can make a decision on this based on the performance of amazon. He's certainly successful at what he does, but there are any number of people who have created success at too high a cost: demoralized people, broken laws, and ultimately a bigger burden is placed on society than the gain that made them successful.

barce 15y ago

Misdirection and inauthentic, that's what I call Steve Yegge's follow up piece. Internet attention spans suck. Remember his first post? Amazon is doing everything wrong and Google is doing everything right. If Bezos is a super intelligent alien, this begs the question, why is Amazon doing everything wrong? Also, Google didn't fire Steve Yegge because he did what their 6-figured marketing people couldn't: With a single post, Steve Yegge brought millions of uniques to Google+.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

espeed 15y ago

The Bezos-presentation formula would probably work well for Y Combinator applications

varelse 15y ago

I worked at google for a couple months this year. My experience of their so-called open corporate culture was a bizarre mix of elements from William Gibson's _The Belonging Kind_ and Robot Chicken's _Our Newest Member, Calvin_. It was one of the loneliest and depressing experiences of my adult life (but with really good food). That said, it turned out that way because I was stupid and naive and let myself get flung into the russian roulette of their blind allocation process. This put me on a team doing work for which I had no real relevant experience and working under a manager who promptly forgot I existed for 3 months. I'd call my experience an outlier, and it all turned out well in the end when I fled the place for a better offer doing work far more relevant to my previous job experience, except that I keep running into others that had almost exactly the same thing happen to them. Amidst the hooplah of Larry and Sergei's Montessori for overgrown gifted kids, there's something very rotten, elitist, and ineffective going on at the googleplex and the initial frustration in Steve's rant hinted to me that deep down he knows this too. Perhaps I'm wrong. But I had such high hopes for the place and they were utterly dashed on the rocks.

puredemo 15y ago
>there's something very rotten, elitist, and ineffective going on at the googleplex and the initial frustration in Steve's rant hinted to me that deep down he knows this too. He does. He wrote the original to pander to them, while bashing Amazon.

scottjad 15y ago

A hyper-intelligent alien is supposedly in our midst and the only evidence given of his vast intelligence is that once upon a time he asked why two software concepts that have been used prominently for years to great profit in his software business that's been running for years were left off a list? Really?

krookoo 15y ago

I doubt it was actually "accidental".