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My take on productivity (it is about productivity after all, right?) is that it matters: a) What you choose to do, and b) How well you do it. The second is affe

by manmal 14y ago

My take on productivity (it is about productivity after all, right?) is that it matters: a) What you choose to do, and b) How well you do it. The second is affected by the domain knowledge you have. Most people don't leave their domain for their whole worklife (they might have secondary domains because of hobbies), and should become experts no matter what (and therefore do well in point b)). Multi-domain genies like Goethe, Da Vinci (, Jobs, Feynman?) have to constantly learn hard to gain enough knowledge in many domains for them to be successful there. Also, I am convinced that such people can do better in a domain they have mastered because of the cross-domain analogies they can apply. Still, what you choose to do (point a)) is as important for productivity. I can be a multi-domain genius scientist and still choose to spend all my time recapitulating achievements of other people, instead of developing a new physics model. Or I can spend years making one app completely bug-free instead of writing 10 new ones. UPDATE: One thing I am really wondering about is: How deep does the knowledge within one domain reach for such personalities? Did Jobs know everything about OS's, or just as much as he needed? My hypothesis is that they all learn just as much as they need to achieve the goal at hand NOW (not hoarding knowledge for the sake of it).

ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
> Multi-domain genies like Goethe, Da Vinci (, Jobs, Feynman?) I'm sorry but I just can't let this go without comment. Steve Jobs was not a "multi-domain genius." He had a single, very specific genius, namely gathering lots and lots of ideas and picking the very best one. (IMO the fact that he was an asshole is probably related but not essential.) His entire career was applying this single ability, which he really was a genius of, to multiple domains. He wasn't a genius at anything about those domains per se, just at what he did once he was working in them. I mean, the fact that he had any technical knowledge at all about operating systems or computer graphics already put him in the top tier of "business guys" but that's not the same thing as a deep understanding. For that matter, let's keep going on your list. Richard Feynmann was a smart guy but all his important work (except superfluidity in helium, I guess) was made exploring a single theme, namely how to put quantum mechanics in a Lagrangian formulation rather than a Hamiltonian. He told the story once of the event that sparked his first interest in physics as a career, and it was his high school physics teacher taking him aside and explaining the principle of least action (the basis of the Lagrangian formulation of classical mechanics) - he basically organized the rest of his career around understanding this principle very, very deeply. The reason he's famous in addition to being smart is that he found a new domain to apply it to, namely quantum mechanics. My point is that while mastering a domain of application was important for these people, probably even crucial, it wasn't really the engine of their success. They first developed a single talent or interest, and then looked for a domain to apply it to.
- manmal 14y ago
  Yeah, I agree with you that it's questionable to apply that label to Jobs and Feynman - Goethe and Da Vinci deserve that much more (it's a bit unfair though because humanity's knowledge was a joke at that time, compared to current-day's). I included them with a question mark because the article mentions both of them as being able to dive into multiple domains very quickly.
- Someone 14y ago
  "IMO the fact that he was an asshole is probably related but not essential." I disagree. He did not only gather ideas; he made sure that there were good ones, too. Doing that requires probing deep, and probing deep hurts. I think he also worked on his efficiency by dismissing people who didn't have high ratios of good ideas, and wasn't afraid to ditch a good or even an excellent idea for a better one. That must have hurt those with those good ideas. Can one do that without being coming over as an asshole? Probably, but not efficiently. That does not mean he was an all-out asshole, though. For example, from the little I read, Jobs cared for his family. Because of that, I would call him ruthless, not an asshole. It is a bit like being an world-class athlete. They will do whatever is necessary to improve their sporting ability. You simply cannot become best of the world by thinking "that is her only chance at the Olympics. Let her go; my chance will come", or without sacrificing something or someone in you social life. Does that make them assholes? IMO: no.
Cyndre 14y ago
I agree with your hypothesis that they learn just enough to accomplish x. That has always been how I do anything. I didn't learn how to write websites that interact with a db, I had an idea that I wanted to accomplish and I learnt enough to do it. This has helped me learn how to tie into a db, create interactive services and perform FFT on thousands of devices to identify bad cables based on their preequalization data.
loxs 14y ago
For perspective, here is my story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4106825 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4106825 I am no "genius", but I am multi-domain for sure. Read the above link. As I already explained it there... the depth is quite like "master" versus "grand-master", at least with me. And I don't know for sure, but it's possible that I become a grand-master at one of my domains at some time (I am still young ;)). I will try to make a comparison with DaVinci. He was probably a "master" of Medicine (Anatomy), and I am sure that really helped him become a "grand-master" of painting. In my case I am a master of medicine, and especially things like genetics, immunology and physiology. Believe me or not, but these things have a whole lot (at least regarding the way of thinking) in common with programming. Especially with how Erlang programs are structured (actor model). Today, Erlang is the programming language I consider my best. I hope, one day I might become a grand-master at programming. Time will tell. And there is another "secret" if you want to go this way. Try to pick relatively "obscure" domains. Being merely a "master" of Erlang, might not be a drawback for my career, but things are probably not the same with Java (just a wild guess).

by manmal 14y ago

ArbitraryLimits 14y ago

> Multi-domain genies like Goethe, Da Vinci (, Jobs, Feynman?) I'm sorry but I just can't let this go without comment. Steve Jobs was not a "multi-domain genius." He had a single, very specific genius, namely gathering lots and lots of ideas and picking the very best one. (IMO the fact that he was an asshole is probably related but not essential.) His entire career was applying this single ability, which he really was a genius of, to multiple domains. He wasn't a genius at anything about those domains per se, just at what he did once he was working in them. I mean, the fact that he had any technical knowledge at all about operating systems or computer graphics already put him in the top tier of "business guys" but that's not the same thing as a deep understanding. For that matter, let's keep going on your list. Richard Feynmann was a smart guy but all his important work (except superfluidity in helium, I guess) was made exploring a single theme, namely how to put quantum mechanics in a Lagrangian formulation rather than a Hamiltonian. He told the story once of the event that sparked his first interest in physics as a career, and it was his high school physics teacher taking him aside and explaining the principle of least action (the basis of the Lagrangian formulation of classical mechanics) - he basically organized the rest of his career around understanding this principle very, very deeply. The reason he's famous in addition to being smart is that he found a new domain to apply it to, namely quantum mechanics. My point is that while mastering a domain of application was important for these people, probably even crucial, it wasn't really the engine of their success. They first developed a single talent or interest, and then looked for a domain to apply it to.

manmal 14y ago
Yeah, I agree with you that it's questionable to apply that label to Jobs and Feynman - Goethe and Da Vinci deserve that much more (it's a bit unfair though because humanity's knowledge was a joke at that time, compared to current-day's). I included them with a question mark because the article mentions both of them as being able to dive into multiple domains very quickly.
Someone 14y ago
"IMO the fact that he was an asshole is probably related but not essential." I disagree. He did not only gather ideas; he made sure that there were good ones, too. Doing that requires probing deep, and probing deep hurts. I think he also worked on his efficiency by dismissing people who didn't have high ratios of good ideas, and wasn't afraid to ditch a good or even an excellent idea for a better one. That must have hurt those with those good ideas. Can one do that without being coming over as an asshole? Probably, but not efficiently. That does not mean he was an all-out asshole, though. For example, from the little I read, Jobs cared for his family. Because of that, I would call him ruthless, not an asshole. It is a bit like being an world-class athlete. They will do whatever is necessary to improve their sporting ability. You simply cannot become best of the world by thinking "that is her only chance at the Olympics. Let her go; my chance will come", or without sacrificing something or someone in you social life. Does that make them assholes? IMO: no.

Cyndre 14y ago

I agree with your hypothesis that they learn just enough to accomplish x. That has always been how I do anything. I didn't learn how to write websites that interact with a db, I had an idea that I wanted to accomplish and I learnt enough to do it. This has helped me learn how to tie into a db, create interactive services and perform FFT on thousands of devices to identify bad cables based on their preequalization data.

loxs 14y ago

For perspective, here is my story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4106825 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4106825 I am no "genius", but I am multi-domain for sure. Read the above link. As I already explained it there... the depth is quite like "master" versus "grand-master", at least with me. And I don't know for sure, but it's possible that I become a grand-master at one of my domains at some time (I am still young ;)). I will try to make a comparison with DaVinci. He was probably a "master" of Medicine (Anatomy), and I am sure that really helped him become a "grand-master" of painting. In my case I am a master of medicine, and especially things like genetics, immunology and physiology. Believe me or not, but these things have a whole lot (at least regarding the way of thinking) in common with programming. Especially with how Erlang programs are structured (actor model). Today, Erlang is the programming language I consider my best. I hope, one day I might become a grand-master at programming. Time will tell. And there is another "secret" if you want to go this way. Try to pick relatively "obscure" domains. Being merely a "master" of Erlang, might not be a drawback for my career, but things are probably not the same with Java (just a wild guess).