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A constrained elite does seem useful within an organization. I like the idea of distinguishing those engineers who go above and beyond and really create somethi

A constrained elite does seem useful within an organization. I like the idea of distinguishing those engineers who go above and beyond and really create something new. However it can also become a gerontocracy easily and can limit the adoption of innovative ideas in the long run. The problem I have with these sorts of social structures is that it assumes that one person out of a hundred is some how "gifted." After reading Coders at Work and listening to interviews with "gifted" artists I think most of these people do not in fact consider themselves such. AFAIK they just worked really hard and the right people at the right time took notice. I assume this is why I often hear these "gifted," people say they feel really lucky to be in the position they're in -- luck did have a small role in it and that seems to be where the "gifted," term comes from. The important part is the hard work these people put into improving themselves, their skills, and the state of the art. However these DE titles can have a negative passive-impact on hiring practices. In order to avoid, "bozos," organizations will try to, "only hire the best." However the "best," is a highly subjective threshold that is constantly in flux. What is state of the art today will be laughably archaic in 5 - 10 years (especially so for technology companies). The harmful effect is that every company will adopt this policy in order to compete and hope that the other companies will adopt the "bozos." What then will happen to the average programmer who is learning the ropes and doing their best to become a DE some day? Should they get filtered out? There are some things about the event horizon that make sense ("one of us is not as stupid as all of us"). However one must be careful when distinguishing their fellows. While it may encourage the best of the best to join together it can also breed an elitist attitude that is counter-productive to innovation. Interesting article and a good read! It's something that I toy with in my mind now and again. Personally I think DE's should form their own groups outside of the organizations they work at. Let people lead by reputation rather than hierarchy.

jmtame 14y ago
This reminds me of part of an essay PG wrote (context: it was intended for high school students, but seems relevant): "People who've done great things tend to seem as if they were a race apart. And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion, partly due to the worshipful attitude biographers inevitably sink into, and partly because, knowing how the story ends, they can't help streamlining the plot till it seems like the subject's life was a matter of destiny, the mere unfolding of some innate genius. In fact I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive, but not totally unlike your other friends. Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that's one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's not our fault if we can't do something as good."
- knewter 14y ago
  This is huge. I once dated a girl who absolutely believed that there was some inherent skill with math / programming that I possessed, and consequently felt that my making good money was just a function of my genetics. This entirely undermines the fact that I spent years upon years forgoing any sort of social life to learn more about computers. The only 'inherent' thing wasn't skill - it was an inability to not want to learn more about computers and programming. It took sweat, and there's an entire category of people who believe in inherent genius versus really effing hard work. That category of people will never put in the work necessary for others to inappropriately categorize them as inherent genius. I hate this problem and don't know how to convince people when they've fallen into that trap :-\
- cli 14y ago
  I find this extraordinarily encouraging. If doing great work does not require some innate Einsteinness, then I am not automatically precluded from doing so due to my genetics. It means having the natural technical skills of John von Neumann is not necessary to do great things. This is an extremely comforting thought.
csours 14y ago
I think the message is that there are certain strata that you should be VERY careful and thoughtful about letting people into. I don't think that is the entry level, but at higher levels of an organization, incompetence can be malicious in a sense.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
stcredzero 14y ago
> What is state of the art today will be laughably archaic in 5 - 10 years (especially so for technology companies). Not everything works like this. It takes decades for some ideas to filter out to the mainstream.
keithpeter 14y ago
"A constrained elite does seem useful within an organization. I like the idea of distinguishing those engineers who go above and beyond and really create something new. However it can also become a gerontocracy easily and can limit the adoption of innovative ideas in the long run." Might it be the case that a technology company itself has a limited lifetime? Or more accurately a limited 'innovation potential' after which it becomes a service organisation?
cousin_it 14y ago
> What is state of the art today will be laughably archaic in 5 - 10 years That depends on what you mean by "state of the art". If you mean the cutting edge of computer science research, then it might not even appear in the mainstream in the next 20 years. For example, type inference was invented in 1982, and 25 years later a very limited version of it entered the mainstream in C# 3.0. Heck, some people even consider lambdas innovative, even though they were invented before computers. If you mean the most widely used parts of computer science research, like algorithms and big-O notation, then it seems pretty clear that those won't become archaic any time soon. If you mean the syntax and libraries of today's popular programming language, then well, duh. You shouldn't be asking about this stuff at interviews in the first place. Your own argument perfectly explains why.
roc 14y ago
> "The problem I have with these sorts of social structures is that it assumes that one person out of a hundred is some how "gifted."" The point of DE-style positions is to get demonstrated great engineers out of the org chart, to free them from bureaucratic overhead. The key is, again, is that these engineers demonstrated their technical value. It has, in ideal form, nothing to do with anything other than a big pile of really excellent work. The idea that some people are better than others despite such a stack of excellent work is antithetical to the DE position and precisely the sort of mechanism by which bozos infiltrate those positions.

jmtame 14y ago

This reminds me of part of an essay PG wrote (context: it was intended for high school students, but seems relevant): "People who've done great things tend to seem as if they were a race apart. And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion, partly due to the worshipful attitude biographers inevitably sink into, and partly because, knowing how the story ends, they can't help streamlining the plot till it seems like the subject's life was a matter of destiny, the mere unfolding of some innate genius. In fact I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive, but not totally unlike your other friends. Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that's one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's not our fault if we can't do something as good."

knewter 14y ago
This is huge. I once dated a girl who absolutely believed that there was some inherent skill with math / programming that I possessed, and consequently felt that my making good money was just a function of my genetics. This entirely undermines the fact that I spent years upon years forgoing any sort of social life to learn more about computers. The only 'inherent' thing wasn't skill - it was an inability to not want to learn more about computers and programming. It took sweat, and there's an entire category of people who believe in inherent genius versus really effing hard work. That category of people will never put in the work necessary for others to inappropriately categorize them as inherent genius. I hate this problem and don't know how to convince people when they've fallen into that trap :-\
cli 14y ago
I find this extraordinarily encouraging. If doing great work does not require some innate Einsteinness, then I am not automatically precluded from doing so due to my genetics. It means having the natural technical skills of John von Neumann is not necessary to do great things. This is an extremely comforting thought.

csours 14y ago

I think the message is that there are certain strata that you should be VERY careful and thoughtful about letting people into. I don't think that is the entry level, but at higher levels of an organization, incompetence can be malicious in a sense.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

stcredzero 14y ago

> What is state of the art today will be laughably archaic in 5 - 10 years (especially so for technology companies). Not everything works like this. It takes decades for some ideas to filter out to the mainstream.

keithpeter 14y ago

"A constrained elite does seem useful within an organization. I like the idea of distinguishing those engineers who go above and beyond and really create something new. However it can also become a gerontocracy easily and can limit the adoption of innovative ideas in the long run." Might it be the case that a technology company itself has a limited lifetime? Or more accurately a limited 'innovation potential' after which it becomes a service organisation?

cousin_it 14y ago

> What is state of the art today will be laughably archaic in 5 - 10 years That depends on what you mean by "state of the art". If you mean the cutting edge of computer science research, then it might not even appear in the mainstream in the next 20 years. For example, type inference was invented in 1982, and 25 years later a very limited version of it entered the mainstream in C# 3.0. Heck, some people even consider lambdas innovative, even though they were invented before computers. If you mean the most widely used parts of computer science research, like algorithms and big-O notation, then it seems pretty clear that those won't become archaic any time soon. If you mean the syntax and libraries of today's popular programming language, then well, duh. You shouldn't be asking about this stuff at interviews in the first place. Your own argument perfectly explains why.

roc 14y ago

> "The problem I have with these sorts of social structures is that it assumes that one person out of a hundred is some how "gifted."" The point of DE-style positions is to get demonstrated great engineers out of the org chart, to free them from bureaucratic overhead. The key is, again, is that these engineers demonstrated their technical value. It has, in ideal form, nothing to do with anything other than a big pile of really excellent work. The idea that some people are better than others despite such a stack of excellent work is antithetical to the DE position and precisely the sort of mechanism by which bozos infiltrate those positions.