6 ms·

"recent years"? This guy has always been like this, going all the way back to ios hacking days or even wii hacking days.

agentultra 4y ago
A certain amount of arrogance is cheeky and endearing. Then there's the kind where the talented musician in the band announces their departure and solo album. And starts talking about finding God and becoming a modern day Prometheus. I can't put my finger on when the transition happened but it was somewhere just before the Lex interview for me.
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  He doesn't come off as particularly arrogant to me, more like a straightforward and direct type. I've yet to meet someone who's good at what they do who isn't convinced of themselves, so that's a given. A philosopher might argue you need this sort of mindset to be successful in the first place. However knowing that you're better at something than most other people doesn't equal arrogance when it's true. There are also a lot of arrogant people who know how to put on an act in public.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    > I've yet to meet someone who's good at what they do who isn't convinced of themselves, so that's a given. I don't think so. I know at least a couple of great engineers who were not so sure of themselves. They were just eager to try, over and over again. Both of them developed novel 3D engines. One formed a company over his engine, the other one taken on one of the best liquid simulation teams, head on, and gave them a good run for their money by being equal to the whole team by himself and his wife. I'm also on the same bandwagon. I'm not sure that I'll come up with a great solution before touching the keyboard. I'll only say it's a good solution after finishing it and comparing it with other available solutions (if there are any) or similar ones. I did great things, and I failed miserably too. In every case being not sure about myself allowed me to have a level head, and see through my solutions' shortcomings and iterate over them. The only thing I'm sure about myself is, I can give a shot, and iterate over it as time and my abilities allow. That's all.
pa7ch 4y ago
His playstation rap was on the video playlist for the Defcon ctf for many years.
giancarlostoro 4y ago
I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your lifetime with your current resources. I personally don't see AI getting anywhere any time soon. Just look at some of the really funny images some of the best AI available generates[0]. Subtle things like this show you that AI is really a UX around a piece of software that attempts to understand what you're asking for with less input than having enough buttons to generate EXACTLY what you're asking for (I'm thinking of photoshop in the case of text -> image). Some things in AI do impress me, but the fact its not far more pervasive in our every day (there are people who use voice assistants sure, but its not EVERY household doing it) lives tells me we still have a long way to go. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/technicallythetruth/comments/y26t6x/ai_asked_to_draw_salmon_swimming_in_river/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technicallythetruth/comments/y26t6x...
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  I think I have to disagree with humility in engineering. There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering, in that you have to be capable of believing you can find a better solution to a problem than literally every other person in history. Obviously it needs to be tempered in interactions with the outside world, but without that core idea, an engineer can't do their job effectively, like a surgeon who loses their nerve when it comes to taking lives in their hands.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    > There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering... I don't agree. You can take pride in what you've accomplished, and you should do that, but you can be humble at the same time. Accepting there will be better individuals than you or better solutions than yours is both sobering and motivating to be and do better. When you accept that you're very smart, but not the smartest, you unlock the potential to be one of the the 10x-100x engineers others aspire. I'm a very motivated individual, and did some pretty impressive things back in the day, and I'm still capable of doing these things. However, I'm not the best, or won't be the best for long. This is how the world works. Being able to say thanks, and being able to say sorry goes a long way, and takes you beyond where unabashed arrogance takes you. Lastly, arrogance makes you fragile. Fragility is not good under stress, and under real world circumstances.

agentultra 4y ago

A certain amount of arrogance is cheeky and endearing. Then there's the kind where the talented musician in the band announces their departure and solo album. And starts talking about finding God and becoming a modern day Prometheus. I can't put my finger on when the transition happened but it was somewhere just before the Lex interview for me.

trompetenaccoun 4y ago
He doesn't come off as particularly arrogant to me, more like a straightforward and direct type. I've yet to meet someone who's good at what they do who isn't convinced of themselves, so that's a given. A philosopher might argue you need this sort of mindset to be successful in the first place. However knowing that you're better at something than most other people doesn't equal arrogance when it's true. There are also a lot of arrogant people who know how to put on an act in public.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  > I've yet to meet someone who's good at what they do who isn't convinced of themselves, so that's a given. I don't think so. I know at least a couple of great engineers who were not so sure of themselves. They were just eager to try, over and over again. Both of them developed novel 3D engines. One formed a company over his engine, the other one taken on one of the best liquid simulation teams, head on, and gave them a good run for their money by being equal to the whole team by himself and his wife. I'm also on the same bandwagon. I'm not sure that I'll come up with a great solution before touching the keyboard. I'll only say it's a good solution after finishing it and comparing it with other available solutions (if there are any) or similar ones. I did great things, and I failed miserably too. In every case being not sure about myself allowed me to have a level head, and see through my solutions' shortcomings and iterate over them. The only thing I'm sure about myself is, I can give a shot, and iterate over it as time and my abilities allow. That's all.

pa7ch 4y ago

His playstation rap was on the video playlist for the Defcon ctf for many years.

giancarlostoro 4y ago

I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your lifetime with your current resources. I personally don't see AI getting anywhere any time soon. Just look at some of the really funny images some of the best AI available generates[0]. Subtle things like this show you that AI is really a UX around a piece of software that attempts to understand what you're asking for with less input than having enough buttons to generate EXACTLY what you're asking for (I'm thinking of photoshop in the case of text -> image). Some things in AI do impress me, but the fact its not far more pervasive in our every day (there are people who use voice assistants sure, but its not EVERY household doing it) lives tells me we still have a long way to go. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/technicallythetruth/comments/y26t6x/ai_asked_to_draw_salmon_swimming_in_river/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technicallythetruth/comments/y26t6x...

OkayPhysicist 4y ago
I think I have to disagree with humility in engineering. There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering, in that you have to be capable of believing you can find a better solution to a problem than literally every other person in history. Obviously it needs to be tempered in interactions with the outside world, but without that core idea, an engineer can't do their job effectively, like a surgeon who loses their nerve when it comes to taking lives in their hands.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  > There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering... I don't agree. You can take pride in what you've accomplished, and you should do that, but you can be humble at the same time. Accepting there will be better individuals than you or better solutions than yours is both sobering and motivating to be and do better. When you accept that you're very smart, but not the smartest, you unlock the potential to be one of the the 10x-100x engineers others aspire. I'm a very motivated individual, and did some pretty impressive things back in the day, and I'm still capable of doing these things. However, I'm not the best, or won't be the best for long. This is how the world works. Being able to say thanks, and being able to say sorry goes a long way, and takes you beyond where unabashed arrogance takes you. Lastly, arrogance makes you fragile. Fragility is not good under stress, and under real world circumstances.