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As a fellow smart, hard-working, nerdy introvert, let me add another bullet point (or perhaps a sub-point under "humility"): personal ethics. I grew up with a

As a fellow smart, hard-working, nerdy introvert, let me add another bullet point (or perhaps a sub-point under "humility"): personal ethics. I grew up with a serious aversion to bullshit in all of its forms. Especially when it verged on outright lying. All too often, I'd seen hucksterish, self-promoting coworkers tell bald-faced lies about their work, their accomplishments, their positions, etc., and get massively rewarded for doing so. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Consciously, I knew that bullshitting about myself -- even just a tiny bit -- was a successful career ascension tactic. And I knew that not doing so was, perhaps, actively slowing me down. But damn it, it just felt so fake and slimy and wrong. Eventually -- and it's taken me more years to learn this fact than I feel comfortable admitting -- I realized that bullshit is not binary. There isn't some black-or-white dichotomy between "lying" and "telling the truth." In between lies an entire spectrum, and some of that spectrum is safe to play in. Even encouraged. It's possible to sell yourself with only a drop of bullshit. Sort of like a fine layer of rhetorical polish. It's not about fabricating accomplishments out of whole cloth, but rather, about talking your real accomplishments up, and describing them in just the right way. For a lot of people, finding that level of just-the-right-amount-of-bullshit comes very naturally. For others, like myself, it's a skill that needs to be learned.

joebadmo 15y ago
Great point, and as an illustration of the same mentality, I find something inside myself recoil at the thought of compromising even a little on bullshit. And I totally agree with you that it often seems like bullshitting talent and skills get people a lot farther in any field than actual value. Which is infuriatingly unfair. I think the struggle is to figure out how to hit the same pschological targets that bullshitters do, without bullshitting. And the answer I'm sort of converging on is, again, to demonstrate your true value. Even this, I think, is something that comes naturally to some and not others. I keep bringing up patio11 because he in no way sets of my bullshit detectors, but manages to demonstrate his value. The feeling I get is that it's something he has a talent for.
- jasonshen 15y ago
  I think at some point you have to move away from the idea of "bullshit". Human beings are basically incapable of making fully rational decisions where all options are weighed and the cost benefit analysis is complete. There is no way to be totally "pure". If you make the world's greatest device and no one knows about it, no one will benefit. The moment you tell anyone about it, you are "selling" and how you choose to portray the device, it's features/benefits, how often and forcefully you endorse the device is all part of sales. Salesmanship IS demonstration of value. Patio11 would be able to sell hackers/developers on something better than a used car salesman, but the verse is true regarding the sale of used cars to regular people.
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    Listen, Jason, please don't take this as an attack. You seem like a nice, earnest guy who in many ways is really trying to help. But your inability to distinguish between bullshit and demonstration of value is abhorrent to me. If you make an amazing product and never tell anyone about it, you're keeping it a secret. If you honestly demonstrate its value to a demographic who can truly benefit from it, that's good marketing and communication. If you lie or exaggerate to people about what your product can do, that's bullshit. These are on a spectrum. I'm going to be blunt here. Pretty much everything on your site, from the branding, to the copy, to the actual blog post itself, which I find mostly insubstantial, sets off alarms. Your basic premise -- that transactions should be mutually beneficial and sales is communication of that mutual benefit -- is not particularly insightful or well-represented. The ratio of self-promotion to content is disconcerting. The presented 'attitude' is off-putting and seems forced. The fact that you can't distinguish between what patio11 does and what an archetypal used car salesman just makes me think you're a bullshitter. But maybe I'm not your target demographic. That's fine. Don't let me stop you. If it works, it works. But know that that's the kind of stuff that makes me allergic to self-promotion in the first place. I don't want to present myself this way, I don't want to be this way, even if that's what it takes to succeed. And the fact that it works hurts my soul. Again, I'm not attacking you, and I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to be honest about how I perceive your site. (If you don't think I'm your target demographic, please safely ignore me.) I'm also trying, in my own way, to come to terms with a form of salesmanship that doesn't make me hate myself.
itmag 15y ago
It's not like the bullshitters think they are telling the truth either. They've just accepted a toxic environment and decided to become callous and hard. I don't this is always a clear-cut choice. Sure, one can decice to say "fuck 'em" and just lie like the rest to game a corrupt system. But, one almost inevitably one becomes cynic and bitter and hardened. I think this is fundamental a choice one needs to make in life. If one wants to feel full feeling, then this goes for both pain and pleasure. And that just may not be conducive to being effective in a corporate environment.

joebadmo 15y ago

Great point, and as an illustration of the same mentality, I find something inside myself recoil at the thought of compromising even a little on bullshit. And I totally agree with you that it often seems like bullshitting talent and skills get people a lot farther in any field than actual value. Which is infuriatingly unfair. I think the struggle is to figure out how to hit the same pschological targets that bullshitters do, without bullshitting. And the answer I'm sort of converging on is, again, to demonstrate your true value. Even this, I think, is something that comes naturally to some and not others. I keep bringing up patio11 because he in no way sets of my bullshit detectors, but manages to demonstrate his value. The feeling I get is that it's something he has a talent for.

jasonshen 15y ago
I think at some point you have to move away from the idea of "bullshit". Human beings are basically incapable of making fully rational decisions where all options are weighed and the cost benefit analysis is complete. There is no way to be totally "pure". If you make the world's greatest device and no one knows about it, no one will benefit. The moment you tell anyone about it, you are "selling" and how you choose to portray the device, it's features/benefits, how often and forcefully you endorse the device is all part of sales. Salesmanship IS demonstration of value. Patio11 would be able to sell hackers/developers on something better than a used car salesman, but the verse is true regarding the sale of used cars to regular people.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  Listen, Jason, please don't take this as an attack. You seem like a nice, earnest guy who in many ways is really trying to help. But your inability to distinguish between bullshit and demonstration of value is abhorrent to me. If you make an amazing product and never tell anyone about it, you're keeping it a secret. If you honestly demonstrate its value to a demographic who can truly benefit from it, that's good marketing and communication. If you lie or exaggerate to people about what your product can do, that's bullshit. These are on a spectrum. I'm going to be blunt here. Pretty much everything on your site, from the branding, to the copy, to the actual blog post itself, which I find mostly insubstantial, sets off alarms. Your basic premise -- that transactions should be mutually beneficial and sales is communication of that mutual benefit -- is not particularly insightful or well-represented. The ratio of self-promotion to content is disconcerting. The presented 'attitude' is off-putting and seems forced. The fact that you can't distinguish between what patio11 does and what an archetypal used car salesman just makes me think you're a bullshitter. But maybe I'm not your target demographic. That's fine. Don't let me stop you. If it works, it works. But know that that's the kind of stuff that makes me allergic to self-promotion in the first place. I don't want to present myself this way, I don't want to be this way, even if that's what it takes to succeed. And the fact that it works hurts my soul. Again, I'm not attacking you, and I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to be honest about how I perceive your site. (If you don't think I'm your target demographic, please safely ignore me.) I'm also trying, in my own way, to come to terms with a form of salesmanship that doesn't make me hate myself.

itmag 15y ago

It's not like the bullshitters think they are telling the truth either. They've just accepted a toxic environment and decided to become callous and hard. I don't this is always a clear-cut choice. Sure, one can decice to say "fuck 'em" and just lie like the rest to game a corrupt system. But, one almost inevitably one becomes cynic and bitter and hardened. I think this is fundamental a choice one needs to make in life. If one wants to feel full feeling, then this goes for both pain and pleasure. And that just may not be conducive to being effective in a corporate environment.