7 ms·

We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators... That's a fine line. The most significant innovations are often iterations. (Google co

by edw519 14y ago

We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators... That's a fine line. The most significant innovations are often iterations. (Google comes to mind.) Why do we do this? Because we want to get rich, of course. I disagree with "Because we want to get rich". And I definitely disagree with "of course". Real hackers do this because we just have to. It just so happens that currently it's also a great way to make money. Many of us hacked long before it was this way and many of us still hack for little or nothing (side projects, open source, etc.) But technologists used to work on big problems. We still do, probably more than ever. But if you're busy reading Techcrunch and going to conferences and hackathons, you'd probably never know about what the other 99% of us are doing. They did it because technology is about improving the human condition... There are many ways to do this, all with relative importance. Putting a man on the moon was definitely cool, but so is getting fresh produce to your supermarket (which probably benefits more people). Like a football team, we hackers all do our part in the blocking, tackling, running, throwing, catching, and scoring. It all counts. Just a few of the things I've contributed to in the past few years ("sexy" is in the eye of the beholder): - people get the right prescription medication on time - firetrucks and ambulances get to where they're supposed to be - parts that go into cars and planes are properly certified - prisoners are kept in jail - those same prisoners get proper medical care - electronic equipment gets assembled properly and on time - medical supplies get dispatched to where they're supposed to - insurance claims are processed properly - quality data is properly maintained for food items

orangethirty 14y ago
Note that its not about getting rich, but about not being broke. A very distinctive difference. Not being broke allows for a good life style. And that's what most of all want.
- PaulHoule 14y ago
  Unfortunately the economic/political system as we know it isn't good at providing "not being broke" without "being rich".
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    I agree. The difference between being broke/not broke is the same as being poor/rich. There is no middle class anymore. Which sucks.
    - Domenic_S 14y ago
      So much wrong with this statement I almost threw my monitor out the window. Broke is temporary. Poor is a state of mind and often may be permanent. More importantly, the implication is that without money, your life is meaningless - which is a terrible lie to believe. There is no middle class anymore: a line created by average folks who earn an average wage and spend too much and make minimum monthly payments on everything and after 20 years of humping the 9-5 or 10-6 or 12-7 wonder why their bank accounts are so anemic and why can't I retire to Hawaii like I planned to when I was 20? "Middle class" is a useless metric anyway, because when pressed to define it nobody can, or they massage the definition as the argument evolves. Here's the definition: if you qualify for government assistance, you're poor. If you don't have to work for your money - you might choose to, but you don't have to - you're rich. The middle class is right in between. I don't know about you, but I see a huge swath of people in between the states of "waiting in the government cheese line" and "collecting 6/7/8/9-figure interest checks".
      - orangethirty 14y ago
        You do make valid points. Yet I reason you are reading two much between the lines. My point is that there are less opportunities for people to make a good standard living than there were before. That is simply from my POV, and I can definitely be wrong.
        lurker14 14y ago
        Before when? Maybe a few years ago was better. But 50 years? 100? No way.
      - Retric 14y ago
        Look, I save almost 1/4 of my income and I still feel poor in many ways. It's not about spending habits it's being able to survive bad shit financially. A friend of mine had a single seizure while looking for work and could not drive for 6 months plus significant medical bills. IMO, if you can't survive a minor medical issue financially then your not middle class and it's really hard to get there before 35 or if you have kids young.
- anoncow 14y ago
  IMO I want to make things, cool things, innovative things, things that add value to peoples lives, things that will save lives, things that others will appreciate, and things that will make me happy and content. If I could achieve this without having to think about getting rich or becoming broke, I would. I don't want personal fame or appreciation either. I just want to be. I just want to do.
  - nooneelse 14y ago
    Are you envisioning a monastic-like group dedicated to turning productive making toward eradicating human suffering and the like?
    - carocaro 14y ago
      Well, I'm definitely up for being a part of said group
      - precisioncoder 14y ago
        Yeah me too, where's the sign up sheet?
    - anoncow 14y ago
      >Are you envisioning a monastic-like group No, I did not think about it that way. I was thinking more on the lines of honest work and honest pay. Though if money was not a constraint many of us would be monks(as far as work is concerned).
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Fully agree. As Kanye said: "Having money aint everything...not having it is."
angersock 14y ago
prisoners are kept in jail That's cool, but if you are in the US, given the fairly dumb laws on a lot of things (drugs, mainly), how do you feel about helping to oppress the population? Are you only helping with really violent offenders? insurance claims are processed properly Isn't this just propping up an awful system? Wouldn't it be better to actually try and fix the base system? ~ As for the rest, good work!
- pc86 14y ago
  ...what? I'm not even going to respond to that troll bait first point of yours, but as for the second, please give some insight as to how a programmer in charge of writing insurance claims processing applications can "fix the base system."
  - angersock 14y ago
    No, think it through. Poster said, "I've contributed to keeping prisoners in prison." This is in no way an inherently good thing--especially given the well-documented clusterfuck that is the judicial system in the US. Have you ever been through the wringer? I don't think that kudos for helping that system is in order, unless it was specifically something like "I wrote software to help schedule inmate times so that violent offenders and trouble inmates were not put in the same areas at the same time as nonviolent or well-behaved inmates." As for the second point--look, it's insurance claims. Depending on what the poster did, this ranges from "I helped people get the best claims service from their provider" to "I helped the provider service the bare minimum number of claims." Without more information on what was done, that topic has a lot of room for bad. "Fix the base system" would be something like "I made a simpler marketplace so that care providers (doctors) can directly bill patients, cheaply and transparently."
    - pc86 14y ago
      > "Fix the base system" would be something like "I made a simpler marketplace so that care providers (doctors) can directly bill patients, cheaply and transparently." ... while simultaneously violating the agreements they signed with insurance providers and putting themselves out of business? I don't know about you, but I want prisoners to stay in prison. To make a blanket statement like "[Contributing to keeping prisoners in prison] is in no way an inherently good thing" is just madness.
zobzu 14y ago
the issue is that people expect innovation to mean "something new, useful" and it generally actually means "something different" and not necessarily new or useful.
samirahmed 14y ago
out of curiosity - how did you contribute to these, through your work? open-source contribution? consulting.
duaneb 14y ago
Let's stop with this this 'real hacker' bullshit. There's nothing wrong with being motivated by wealth; gates was and now he's the largest charity on the planet.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  To me, there is little difference between the terms "real hacker" and "real American." Both exist for one purpose: to make the elitist feel good about themselves while giving them a chance to look down on plebes.
  - EvanKelly 14y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Oh, but "real American" serves the opposite purpose: the whip the ignorant plebes into a frenzy of tribal pride in order to justify policies that serve the elite. Of course, the question, and the issue of where "real American" comes from is: which elite? "Real American" talk is when the capitalist class talks to the blue-collar working class and demonizes the white-collar working class, the intelligentsia, the professional working class, academia, the culture industry, and any petite bourgeoisie associated with the aforementioned.
- contingencies 14y ago
  There's no need to be confrontational. I agree with the suggestion that wealth is generally not the aim that drives the more knowledgeable minds to long-term effect in our industry. My theory is that that's because once you have enough to get by, the problem of money goes away and is replaced with competing concerns (ie. curiosity to create, learn or experience new things).
  - duaneb 14y ago
    > There's no need to be confrontational. I disagree, I think that the 'real' anything meme is harmful and should be stopped immediately. > I agree with the suggestion that wealth is generally not the aim that drives the more knowledgeable minds to long-term effect in our industry. I agree with this as well, I just didn't like the idea that if you are driven by money then you aren't a hacker. EDIT: added missing word.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Hario 14y ago
Seems like you're doing what the OP was trying to inspire others to do. Congrats.
jasonlotito 14y ago
> I disagree with "Because we want to get rich". And I definitely disagree with "of course". Real hackers do this because we just have to. Ignoring the awful "real hackers" commentary, one has nothing to do with what the article was referencing at the time: starting a company. At the core, if you start a company, you want to make money. Unless you are going the non-profit route, you are in it to make money, and that means getting rich.
- shardling 14y ago
  > Unless you are going the non-profit route, you are in it to make money, and that means getting rich. What a depressing outlook. Is there no room for people who want to make enough money to get by while doing what they love?
  - eplanit 14y ago
    Yes, they are called "employees". People inclined to pursue work on what they enjoy are often very happy to achieve a comfortable salary with decent benefits. There is nothing wrong with that. The difference is in depth of passion, and in how much that is part of the individual's identity. I respect entrepreneurs, and I also respect the humble employee. For the entrepreneur, I think it is overly simplistic to say is it solely about greed and wealth. I know some very successful people, and most all tell me that the journey and experience is what drives them.
bastijn 14y ago
thank you. I was about to post the same. Couldnt agree with you more. I find the title a nice one-liner, draws attention. But when you think about it, so what? When is something innovation, and when is it iteration anyway? The man didnt land on the moon out of a single project, you know. that classic example was actually iteration ;). The general statement in there is that of those old guys in every company; "Back than, everything was better.". Nope.
kybernetyk 14y ago
> - prisoners are kept in jail I wouldn't be too proud of that. In fact I would turn down such a job "opportunity" if it ever should come up. Yes, I know. Prisons are a necessary evil until we come up with a better solution to crime but still they are evil and I don't want to help robbing fellow human beings of their freedom.
- Datsundere 14y ago
  I was thinking you'd say along the lines of we're wasting our tax money on prisons.
pm 14y ago
I remember reading a paper once (no source; it was years ago) that explained innovation versus invention, and that most people confused the two, not realising that innovation is defined as iterating on an existing technology, while invention is creating a new technology. Innovation is NOT creating a new technology.

by edw519 14y ago

orangethirty 14y ago

Note that its not about getting rich, but about not being broke. A very distinctive difference. Not being broke allows for a good life style. And that's what most of all want.

PaulHoule 14y ago
Unfortunately the economic/political system as we know it isn't good at providing "not being broke" without "being rich".
- orangethirty 14y ago
  I agree. The difference between being broke/not broke is the same as being poor/rich. There is no middle class anymore. Which sucks.
  - Domenic_S 14y ago
    So much wrong with this statement I almost threw my monitor out the window. Broke is temporary. Poor is a state of mind and often may be permanent. More importantly, the implication is that without money, your life is meaningless - which is a terrible lie to believe. There is no middle class anymore: a line created by average folks who earn an average wage and spend too much and make minimum monthly payments on everything and after 20 years of humping the 9-5 or 10-6 or 12-7 wonder why their bank accounts are so anemic and why can't I retire to Hawaii like I planned to when I was 20? "Middle class" is a useless metric anyway, because when pressed to define it nobody can, or they massage the definition as the argument evolves. Here's the definition: if you qualify for government assistance, you're poor. If you don't have to work for your money - you might choose to, but you don't have to - you're rich. The middle class is right in between. I don't know about you, but I see a huge swath of people in between the states of "waiting in the government cheese line" and "collecting 6/7/8/9-figure interest checks".
    - orangethirty 14y ago
      You do make valid points. Yet I reason you are reading two much between the lines. My point is that there are less opportunities for people to make a good standard living than there were before. That is simply from my POV, and I can definitely be wrong.
      - lurker14 14y ago
        Before when? Maybe a few years ago was better. But 50 years? 100? No way.
    - Retric 14y ago
      Look, I save almost 1/4 of my income and I still feel poor in many ways. It's not about spending habits it's being able to survive bad shit financially. A friend of mine had a single seizure while looking for work and could not drive for 6 months plus significant medical bills. IMO, if you can't survive a minor medical issue financially then your not middle class and it's really hard to get there before 35 or if you have kids young.
anoncow 14y ago
IMO I want to make things, cool things, innovative things, things that add value to peoples lives, things that will save lives, things that others will appreciate, and things that will make me happy and content. If I could achieve this without having to think about getting rich or becoming broke, I would. I don't want personal fame or appreciation either. I just want to be. I just want to do.
- nooneelse 14y ago
  Are you envisioning a monastic-like group dedicated to turning productive making toward eradicating human suffering and the like?
  - carocaro 14y ago
    Well, I'm definitely up for being a part of said group
    - precisioncoder 14y ago
      Yeah me too, where's the sign up sheet?
  - anoncow 14y ago
    >Are you envisioning a monastic-like group No, I did not think about it that way. I was thinking more on the lines of honest work and honest pay. Though if money was not a constraint many of us would be monks(as far as work is concerned).
marcamillion 14y ago
Fully agree. As Kanye said: "Having money aint everything...not having it is."

angersock 14y ago

prisoners are kept in jail That's cool, but if you are in the US, given the fairly dumb laws on a lot of things (drugs, mainly), how do you feel about helping to oppress the population? Are you only helping with really violent offenders? insurance claims are processed properly Isn't this just propping up an awful system? Wouldn't it be better to actually try and fix the base system? ~ As for the rest, good work!

pc86 14y ago
...what? I'm not even going to respond to that troll bait first point of yours, but as for the second, please give some insight as to how a programmer in charge of writing insurance claims processing applications can "fix the base system."
- angersock 14y ago
  No, think it through. Poster said, "I've contributed to keeping prisoners in prison." This is in no way an inherently good thing--especially given the well-documented clusterfuck that is the judicial system in the US. Have you ever been through the wringer? I don't think that kudos for helping that system is in order, unless it was specifically something like "I wrote software to help schedule inmate times so that violent offenders and trouble inmates were not put in the same areas at the same time as nonviolent or well-behaved inmates." As for the second point--look, it's insurance claims. Depending on what the poster did, this ranges from "I helped people get the best claims service from their provider" to "I helped the provider service the bare minimum number of claims." Without more information on what was done, that topic has a lot of room for bad. "Fix the base system" would be something like "I made a simpler marketplace so that care providers (doctors) can directly bill patients, cheaply and transparently."
  - pc86 14y ago
    > "Fix the base system" would be something like "I made a simpler marketplace so that care providers (doctors) can directly bill patients, cheaply and transparently." ... while simultaneously violating the agreements they signed with insurance providers and putting themselves out of business? I don't know about you, but I want prisoners to stay in prison. To make a blanket statement like "[Contributing to keeping prisoners in prison] is in no way an inherently good thing" is just madness.

zobzu 14y ago

the issue is that people expect innovation to mean "something new, useful" and it generally actually means "something different" and not necessarily new or useful.

samirahmed 14y ago

out of curiosity - how did you contribute to these, through your work? open-source contribution? consulting.

duaneb 14y ago

Let's stop with this this 'real hacker' bullshit. There's nothing wrong with being motivated by wealth; gates was and now he's the largest charity on the planet.

enraged_camel 14y ago
To me, there is little difference between the terms "real hacker" and "real American." Both exist for one purpose: to make the elitist feel good about themselves while giving them a chance to look down on plebes.
- EvanKelly 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Oh, but "real American" serves the opposite purpose: the whip the ignorant plebes into a frenzy of tribal pride in order to justify policies that serve the elite. Of course, the question, and the issue of where "real American" comes from is: which elite? "Real American" talk is when the capitalist class talks to the blue-collar working class and demonizes the white-collar working class, the intelligentsia, the professional working class, academia, the culture industry, and any petite bourgeoisie associated with the aforementioned.
contingencies 14y ago
There's no need to be confrontational. I agree with the suggestion that wealth is generally not the aim that drives the more knowledgeable minds to long-term effect in our industry. My theory is that that's because once you have enough to get by, the problem of money goes away and is replaced with competing concerns (ie. curiosity to create, learn or experience new things).
- duaneb 14y ago
  > There's no need to be confrontational. I disagree, I think that the 'real' anything meme is harmful and should be stopped immediately. > I agree with the suggestion that wealth is generally not the aim that drives the more knowledgeable minds to long-term effect in our industry. I agree with this as well, I just didn't like the idea that if you are driven by money then you aren't a hacker. EDIT: added missing word.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Hario 14y ago

Seems like you're doing what the OP was trying to inspire others to do. Congrats.

jasonlotito 14y ago

> I disagree with "Because we want to get rich". And I definitely disagree with "of course". Real hackers do this because we just have to. Ignoring the awful "real hackers" commentary, one has nothing to do with what the article was referencing at the time: starting a company. At the core, if you start a company, you want to make money. Unless you are going the non-profit route, you are in it to make money, and that means getting rich.

shardling 14y ago
> Unless you are going the non-profit route, you are in it to make money, and that means getting rich. What a depressing outlook. Is there no room for people who want to make enough money to get by while doing what they love?
- eplanit 14y ago
  Yes, they are called "employees". People inclined to pursue work on what they enjoy are often very happy to achieve a comfortable salary with decent benefits. There is nothing wrong with that. The difference is in depth of passion, and in how much that is part of the individual's identity. I respect entrepreneurs, and I also respect the humble employee. For the entrepreneur, I think it is overly simplistic to say is it solely about greed and wealth. I know some very successful people, and most all tell me that the journey and experience is what drives them.

bastijn 14y ago

thank you. I was about to post the same. Couldnt agree with you more. I find the title a nice one-liner, draws attention. But when you think about it, so what? When is something innovation, and when is it iteration anyway? The man didnt land on the moon out of a single project, you know. that classic example was actually iteration ;). The general statement in there is that of those old guys in every company; "Back than, everything was better.". Nope.

kybernetyk 14y ago

> - prisoners are kept in jail I wouldn't be too proud of that. In fact I would turn down such a job "opportunity" if it ever should come up. Yes, I know. Prisons are a necessary evil until we come up with a better solution to crime but still they are evil and I don't want to help robbing fellow human beings of their freedom.

Datsundere 14y ago
I was thinking you'd say along the lines of we're wasting our tax money on prisons.

pm 14y ago

I remember reading a paper once (no source; it was years ago) that explained innovation versus invention, and that most people confused the two, not realising that innovation is defined as iterating on an existing technology, while invention is creating a new technology. Innovation is NOT creating a new technology.