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>The guy who invented the spreadsheet didn't have to absorb all available accounting literature first, and Elon Musk didn't spend 30 years in the Apollo program

by a_p 14y ago

>The guy who invented the spreadsheet didn't have to absorb all available accounting literature first, and Elon Musk didn't spend 30 years in the Apollo program before being allowed to send his own rocket to space. Both of your examples are poor. Dan Bricklin had earned a B.S in computer science from MIT and was studying for an MBA at Harvard when he wrote a software program that was useful for businesses. He had a very good background for the product that he created. Elon Musk was able to send his rocket into space after he hired a team of smart engineers to build it for him. His engineers benefited from the knowledge gained from NASA research that cost (when adjusted for inflation) hundreds of billions of dollars.

zeteo 14y ago
Bricklin's background in business was minimal, but he created a product that revolutionized business processes more than thousands of acclaimed gurus. Musk absorbed a few books on rocketry (see my related comment) and constructed an accurate theoretical model before hiring anyone.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Some people are geniuses (or close enough). Other people? Not so much. This guy pretty much falls into the not so much category. He forgot to include iron! Did Musk forget to include $ROCKETRY_COMPONENT? I'm glad that there are people willing to do interesting new stuff. I'm glad that some of these people are happy to experiment on themselves. I'm even glad if some of these people turn out to be idiots. I get a bit unhappy when someone who doesn't appear to know what they're talking about (and who has demonstrated their ignorance) goes on to say that they've got some answer that other people should be listening to. When these people say "It worked for me! You need to try this!" all sorts of bells start ringing. Asking people not to push their uninformed experimental pseudo-science is not the same as asking very clever people to not be clever in other fields.
  - ScottBurson 14y ago
    Show me anyplace in any of his blog posts where he says anything like "You need to try this!". He does invite people who would like to try it to contact him. That's far from a hard sell. He also says things like "At this point I think scepticism is completely reasonable."

by a_p 14y ago

zeteo 14y ago

Bricklin's background in business was minimal, but he created a product that revolutionized business processes more than thousands of acclaimed gurus. Musk absorbed a few books on rocketry (see my related comment) and constructed an accurate theoretical model before hiring anyone.

DanBC 14y ago
Some people are geniuses (or close enough). Other people? Not so much. This guy pretty much falls into the not so much category. He forgot to include iron! Did Musk forget to include $ROCKETRY_COMPONENT? I'm glad that there are people willing to do interesting new stuff. I'm glad that some of these people are happy to experiment on themselves. I'm even glad if some of these people turn out to be idiots. I get a bit unhappy when someone who doesn't appear to know what they're talking about (and who has demonstrated their ignorance) goes on to say that they've got some answer that other people should be listening to. When these people say "It worked for me! You need to try this!" all sorts of bells start ringing. Asking people not to push their uninformed experimental pseudo-science is not the same as asking very clever people to not be clever in other fields.
- ScottBurson 14y ago
  Show me anyplace in any of his blog posts where he says anything like "You need to try this!". He does invite people who would like to try it to contact him. That's far from a hard sell. He also says things like "At this point I think scepticism is completely reasonable."