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You're wrong. There's only a mild correlation between fame and skill set. I can name a few dozen 'famous' internet developers, and have even interviewed a few

You're wrong. There's only a mild correlation between fame and skill set. I can name a few dozen 'famous' internet developers, and have even interviewed a few of them, and most weren't anything special, other than being good bloggers. Meanwhile, take someone like Jeff Dean (who I just learned about a few days ago). Designed and implemented BigTable, MapReduce, Protocol Buffers, etc. I'm not sure most people outside of Google have even heard of him. Sometimes your work finds the limelight but you aren't credited for it. We all know Elon Musk but who knows the guy who actually wrote the code for the rockets? I don't remember the name of the Amazon Dynamo guys, and have no idea who designed EC2 and S3. These are awesome systems used by millions of people, but the creators are (relatively) unknown.

dkhenry 14y ago
Jeff Dean would be exactly who I am talking about. I don't know how you managed to _not_ know who he is. He along with Sanjay Ghemawaty pretty much took google from a research project to the Juggernaut we know about today. he has no blog that I can find no GitHub account and yet most people who work in the field of data processing should know who he is. He has numerous published research papers and has given talks about his work at Google. Someone of his caliber can not stay hidden. Thats the definition of a "Master" at their trade, if your really _that_ good at what you do you can not stay in the shadows people will search you out. This idea that there are a majority of people like Jeff who no one knows about is silly. they may not get profiles in the new york times, but anyone who want to do what they do will know who they are. Also how can you not know who made Amazon Dynamo they published a research paper on it.(http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo-sosp2007.pdf http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo-sosp...)
- xanados 14y ago
  When you are considering hiring you don't want to hire the already famous Jeff Dean, you want to hire the 25-year-old that will become Jeff Dean. This person is not in the limelight, and not everyone knows their name. I mean, you want to hire Jeff Dean too, but you'd be happy to find all the 85% as smart as Jeff Dean people out there who will never be famous based solely on their work and without self-promotion.
  - dkhenry 14y ago
    I would but that 25 year old is not a "Master" as this article represents. I know the context of the discussion on this thread has shifted form the content of the article, and in the context of trying to hire talent yes there are a lot of talented people who are in the shadows, but my argument is they are not the true masters and innovators of our craft.

dkhenry 14y ago

Jeff Dean would be exactly who I am talking about. I don't know how you managed to _not_ know who he is. He along with Sanjay Ghemawaty pretty much took google from a research project to the Juggernaut we know about today. he has no blog that I can find no GitHub account and yet most people who work in the field of data processing should know who he is. He has numerous published research papers and has given talks about his work at Google. Someone of his caliber can not stay hidden. Thats the definition of a "Master" at their trade, if your really _that_ good at what you do you can not stay in the shadows people will search you out. This idea that there are a majority of people like Jeff who no one knows about is silly. they may not get profiles in the new york times, but anyone who want to do what they do will know who they are. Also how can you not know who made Amazon Dynamo they published a research paper on it.(http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo-sosp2007.pdf http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo-sosp...)

xanados 14y ago
When you are considering hiring you don't want to hire the already famous Jeff Dean, you want to hire the 25-year-old that will become Jeff Dean. This person is not in the limelight, and not everyone knows their name. I mean, you want to hire Jeff Dean too, but you'd be happy to find all the 85% as smart as Jeff Dean people out there who will never be famous based solely on their work and without self-promotion.
- dkhenry 14y ago
  I would but that 25 year old is not a "Master" as this article represents. I know the context of the discussion on this thread has shifted form the content of the article, and in the context of trying to hire talent yes there are a lot of talented people who are in the shadows, but my argument is they are not the true masters and innovators of our craft.