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I find it a sad thing that often great achievements and ruthlessness go hand in hand. “Hard times create strong men and strong men create good times” is a famou

I find it a sad thing that often great achievements and ruthlessness go hand in hand. “Hard times create strong men and strong men create good times” is a famous quote. For example, it applies to Arnold Schwarzenegger since his father apparently mentally and physically abused Arnold[1], as well as for Elon Musk’s father for whom it is well documented he is a piece of work. If you read a lot about founders then this is a recurring theme. Why else would you work like a maniac your whole life? You don’t need a successful company to have a happy life. There have also been studies that people tend to leash out to people below them if they feel that someone above them leashes out on them. This “displacement behavior” is a form of stress relieve. Monkeys do it too, and also there it is a form of stress relieve. It sort of makes sense right? You feel shit so then the easy solution is just to tell someone else that he/she is shit. You feel a bit better about yourself and all is good. Apart from the poor person (or monkey) who receives the abuse. So on the one hand, we want great men who produce good times, who solve difficult problems (Elon) or who inspire people (Arnold). But on the other hand I wish no child to have a tough childhood like that. That’s life I guess. One thing about Shockley. The blog mentions Shockley’s funeral. What the blog doesn’t mention is why there was no funeral. His wife thought nobody would come anyway so decided to not hold the ceremony. A sad ending. I wonder how his parents were and what would have become of him if things would have been a bit different. Maybe he would have been smart and emphatic? [1]: Although many people don’t know this, Arnold can be very ruthless. Read about his early years and his relationships for more info.

julianeon 2y ago
In Shockley's case we have the benefit of seeing his whole life, from end to end. If for example a person loses a job, that could be a fluke; that could be due to anything. I would draw next to no conclusions from a person losing a job one time. But if we can see their whole career at a glance, and notice that person was fired 15 times in 40 years, that's a pattern. We can say that's out of the ordinary, that doesn't happen to the average working person. The record speaks for itself: this person must have had some quality that made his employers want to fire him. Shockley was like this. Repeatedly in his life we see this pattern of people scrambling to get away from working with, or under, him. It's unusual for people to dislike someone that much: that's not common. If it was one anonymous guy over his whole career lodging a complaint, we might ignore it. But so many people voted to not be around Shockley, with their feet and with their employment. That's not common for a scientist, Democrat, Republican, entrepreneur, or anyone really: there must have been some unpleasant quality about Shockley that made people not want to be around him, as this pattern repeated over his whole life shows.
- mlinhares 2y ago
  He wasn't good at the abusive boss dynamic I think, there's plenty of terrible bosses and terrible tech companies out there that continue to chew up workers and some even come back, because the abusive dynamics are very well done. All he needed was getting better at it.
immibis 2y ago
I don't see why Elon should be in the category of strong men created by hard times who produce good times. It seems like all he did was fail upwards until he was rich enough to provide funding to, yes, some good projects. But nothing he's actually had a direct hand has really been successful. If anything, now that he's (seemingly) an incompetent president of the US, he's likely to create bad times.
- MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
  This may be the most delusional comment in the history of HN.
- baq 2y ago
  You can say many things about Elon and I’d probably agree with lots of them, especially regarding the near past, but he did build at least two organizations which have changed or are actively and visibly changing the world for the better. Funding came because of his resilience and perseverance, not in spite of his other traits. Or, to quote a classic, he was smart and got shit done, for about two decades.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Which ones are those? PayPal (he didn't run it)? Tesla (it turned to shit when he ran it)? SpaceX (he didn't run it)? Twitter (it turned to shit when he ran it)?
    - Zardoz84 2y ago
      SpaceX is know to have a department only dedicated to handling the dumb ideas from Elon. Anyone with a bed of esmeralds could be a genius. It's only a question of luck.
    - wat10000 2y ago
      What period in Tesla’s history are you identifying as “turned to shit”? Seems like they’ve been on a continuous upward trajectory and he’s been at the helm nearly the whole time. When he took over, they had no products, no sales, no manufacturing. He’s been in charge since then, during which they built several factories, launched several models, and sold several million cars. He’s obviously not running the place day to day all the time, but I don’t see a period of decline where you could point and say “that’s when Elon came in and screwed it up.”
lutusp 2y ago
> I find it a sad thing that often great achievements and ruthlessness go hand in hand. That may be true (plenty of examples), but it may also be an outlier. It might be more common for talented individuals to work cooperatively, in a way that leads to breakthroughs, but without anyone trying to steal all the credit. I emphasize this is just a theory, in a field that cannot be reduced to science. I've met many talented people over decades, in effective teams, but worked with only one classic martinet -- Steve Jobs. To hear Steve tell it, he was the reason for Apple's success. But he didn't design anything -- he was a salesman, not an engineer. In fairness, his incompetent replacements were in every way worse. This thread is perfectly timed. We're about to see another martinet try to steal credit for the accomplishments of others, while denying responsibility for errors along the way.
- kragen 2y ago
  Your perspective is irreplaceable on this matter. Thank you for sharing it; I had feared you had given up on HN.
wat10000 2y ago
I’m very much unconvinced by the “hard times strong men good times weak men hard times” cycle. It seems like something people come up with to justify their bad behavior, or the bad behavior of people they admire. Do “great men” actually come from difficult backgrounds at above the background rate? Or do we just tend to notice the ones who do?
ptek 2y ago
>> I find it a sad thing that often great achievements and ruthlessness go hand in hand. “Hard times create strong men and strong men create good times” is a famous quote. I wonder if this applies to computing where in the early days RAM and clock cycles were limited so programmers and engineers had to be more creative and do more for less, where now it's just buy another GB RAM stick for $50USD and try again. I remember a youtube video with bwk (Brian Kernighan) and he was saying that when they were doing UNIX and computing in the 70s it was easy for them as they had all the low hanging fruit to pick where now you have to climb higher to get the fruit?

julianeon 2y ago

In Shockley's case we have the benefit of seeing his whole life, from end to end. If for example a person loses a job, that could be a fluke; that could be due to anything. I would draw next to no conclusions from a person losing a job one time. But if we can see their whole career at a glance, and notice that person was fired 15 times in 40 years, that's a pattern. We can say that's out of the ordinary, that doesn't happen to the average working person. The record speaks for itself: this person must have had some quality that made his employers want to fire him. Shockley was like this. Repeatedly in his life we see this pattern of people scrambling to get away from working with, or under, him. It's unusual for people to dislike someone that much: that's not common. If it was one anonymous guy over his whole career lodging a complaint, we might ignore it. But so many people voted to not be around Shockley, with their feet and with their employment. That's not common for a scientist, Democrat, Republican, entrepreneur, or anyone really: there must have been some unpleasant quality about Shockley that made people not want to be around him, as this pattern repeated over his whole life shows.

mlinhares 2y ago
He wasn't good at the abusive boss dynamic I think, there's plenty of terrible bosses and terrible tech companies out there that continue to chew up workers and some even come back, because the abusive dynamics are very well done. All he needed was getting better at it.

immibis 2y ago

I don't see why Elon should be in the category of strong men created by hard times who produce good times. It seems like all he did was fail upwards until he was rich enough to provide funding to, yes, some good projects. But nothing he's actually had a direct hand has really been successful. If anything, now that he's (seemingly) an incompetent president of the US, he's likely to create bad times.

MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
This may be the most delusional comment in the history of HN.
baq 2y ago
You can say many things about Elon and I’d probably agree with lots of them, especially regarding the near past, but he did build at least two organizations which have changed or are actively and visibly changing the world for the better. Funding came because of his resilience and perseverance, not in spite of his other traits. Or, to quote a classic, he was smart and got shit done, for about two decades.
- immibis 2y ago
  Which ones are those? PayPal (he didn't run it)? Tesla (it turned to shit when he ran it)? SpaceX (he didn't run it)? Twitter (it turned to shit when he ran it)?
  - Zardoz84 2y ago
    SpaceX is know to have a department only dedicated to handling the dumb ideas from Elon. Anyone with a bed of esmeralds could be a genius. It's only a question of luck.
  - wat10000 2y ago
    What period in Tesla’s history are you identifying as “turned to shit”? Seems like they’ve been on a continuous upward trajectory and he’s been at the helm nearly the whole time. When he took over, they had no products, no sales, no manufacturing. He’s been in charge since then, during which they built several factories, launched several models, and sold several million cars. He’s obviously not running the place day to day all the time, but I don’t see a period of decline where you could point and say “that’s when Elon came in and screwed it up.”

lutusp 2y ago

> I find it a sad thing that often great achievements and ruthlessness go hand in hand. That may be true (plenty of examples), but it may also be an outlier. It might be more common for talented individuals to work cooperatively, in a way that leads to breakthroughs, but without anyone trying to steal all the credit. I emphasize this is just a theory, in a field that cannot be reduced to science. I've met many talented people over decades, in effective teams, but worked with only one classic martinet -- Steve Jobs. To hear Steve tell it, he was the reason for Apple's success. But he didn't design anything -- he was a salesman, not an engineer. In fairness, his incompetent replacements were in every way worse. This thread is perfectly timed. We're about to see another martinet try to steal credit for the accomplishments of others, while denying responsibility for errors along the way.

kragen 2y ago
Your perspective is irreplaceable on this matter. Thank you for sharing it; I had feared you had given up on HN.

wat10000 2y ago

I’m very much unconvinced by the “hard times strong men good times weak men hard times” cycle. It seems like something people come up with to justify their bad behavior, or the bad behavior of people they admire. Do “great men” actually come from difficult backgrounds at above the background rate? Or do we just tend to notice the ones who do?

ptek 2y ago

>> I find it a sad thing that often great achievements and ruthlessness go hand in hand. “Hard times create strong men and strong men create good times” is a famous quote. I wonder if this applies to computing where in the early days RAM and clock cycles were limited so programmers and engineers had to be more creative and do more for less, where now it's just buy another GB RAM stick for $50USD and try again. I remember a youtube video with bwk (Brian Kernighan) and he was saying that when they were doing UNIX and computing in the 70s it was easy for them as they had all the low hanging fruit to pick where now you have to climb higher to get the fruit?