Career Advice from Scott Adams (2007) | Hacker News Reader

Career Advice from Scott Adams (2007)

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Scott Adams is very entertaining. He predicted Trump's staying power way back in the summer when everyone (including me) thought his candidacy was just a joke. In fact, he has predicted a landslide for Trump in the general election. He says it's based on his training as a hypnotist, which gives him an insight into the art of persuasion.

Over the years I've learned many things from following Adams' blog. He recommended Cialdini's books on persuasion, which are a must read for all sales people and all entrepreneurs (because we are salespeople, like it or not). His financial advice [1] is rock solid, and his latest book on goal-oriented vs. systems-oriented thinking was also an eye-opener.

TLDR: I like the dude.

[1] https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/scott-adams-financial-advice/

Yeah I think people misread Scott. He's always had crazy ideas, but they've been well-articulated and always delivered with a healthy dose of humility.

He doesn't take himself too seriously. Whereas many see him as a troll, I think he's a true contrarian in a sea of fashionable contrarians.

For a guy who doesn't take himself too seriously, he sure creates a lot of sockpuppets to argue with his detractors and sing his own praises.

I feel like anyone who makes knowledge of their MESNA membership public takes themselves fairly seriously...

Wait, Scott Adams is part of a organosulfur compound?

He did that once a few years ago. He learned his lesson.

[citation needed]

I was around for the fateful Metafilter thread where Scott Adams sockpupetted vigorously until he was found out: http://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Scott_Adams,_plannedchaos

It's a pretty........... interesting read. http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education...

Damn, this is some extra crazy. https://www.reddit.com/user/plannedchaos

Good thing PG only updates his footnotes when people "misunderstand" him.

Wow - there's few better examples of the fine line between crazy and genius.

I can't tell if he's using the plannedchaos accounts on various sites to seriously defend himself by proxy, or is it that he thinks the Internet is a load of pixels on a screen that unlike some of us he just doesn't take it very seriously?

Edit: somebody commented below that Scott is now a professional troll, and I'm inclined to think that they're probably right!

I wrote that comment. Adams is out of touch.

http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppe...

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102881515756/planned-chaos

"True contrarian" is just a politer name for troll, though. If you say unpopular things solely because they're unpopular, we have a word for that.

I don't think he does them just to be unpopular. He's just conducting thought experiments. He does like to tease his audience but so does Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution.

If he's not trying to piss people off, he sure does gloat a lot about how much he loves pissing people off.

Here's one of his articles on TRumP: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/135324448866/the-lucky-hitler-h...

His blog is a lot of fun when you realize he's doing it for fun.

It's weird. He talks a load of nonsense, and makes basic logical errors all the time, going as far as to recommend nonsense pseudoscience. At times I wonder if maybe he isn't actually that smart, and just got lucky somehow.

But he makes accurate predictions. Consistently. You can't ignore that.

What accurate predictions has he made? Just the one about Trump's popularity?

Adams claims Trump is popular because Trump is persuasive. Trump is certainly a good orator, but that's not the only reason.

Do you remember when Trump spearheaded the birthers during the 2008 election? He knew he could channel working class frustration by appealing to xenophobia and racism.

He wrote a book of predictions that I read years ago. The big concrete prediction I remember from it was that health food would go mainstream, and it has. More recently/concretely I was going by http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/02/2015-predictions-calibr... .

Back in the late 90s he predicted there would be a massive terror attack and that it would make airline travel suck even more.

About that amazing Trump prediction: I have my doubts that Scott truly believed it himself. Quoting his thoughts, in 2011[1]:

> Most of those authors don't believe their predictions are likely to pan out. They're making calculated bets that in the unlikely event they guessed right, they will become famous. That's worth a fortune in future speaking gigs and book deals

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20110421130209/http://www.dilber...?

Another nice quote from that post:

"With the blog in particular, the explicit model is that I write down whatever dumbass theory pops into my head and try to sell it as God’s final word. Then my readers shred it in the comment section, or sometimes say it’s an old idea that’s already been done. Taken out of context, many of my blog posts and even my Wall Street Journal articles would look like the crazy rantings of a guy who thinks he has all the answers to fix the entire world. At best, that’s only half true."

Is the "How to fail at almost everything" book the one about goals and systems thinking? I haven't read it, so it's hard to say just based on the title.

Yes, it's systems oriented.

Scott Adams used to give great career advice and cartooning tips. I think he got bored a few years ago and decided to become a professional troll. I will write some examples after work.

Okay I'm home now. Let's dissect the most famous example.

1) Adams compares women to children and people with mental disabilities.

2) Claims he didn't and that everyone who thinks that has bad reading comprehension. Also plays the victim card anytime someone accuses him of misogyny.

3) Writes article about hypnosis. Adams says he can convince people that two things are related without doing it directly. Gives example similar to the time he did with women and children.

4) Praises Trump for being a master wizard, whatever that means. Gives example where Trump associates two things without stating it directly.

5) Claims everyone is an outragist for thinking that Trump associated Mexicans with rapists.

And a quote: "They [Gawker] love me. And I love their hate-traffic, so everyone wins."

https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/669004328326172673

> Adams compares women to children and people with mental disabilities.

So, I googled the issue you apparently were talking about, and I have a general question.

http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adam-sexist-mens-rights/ (That's it, right?)

So, when americans say that someone "compared" A and B — do you guys, like normal people, mean that (1) said someone (in this example, Scott Adams) performed an operation of comparison, which may or may not have resulted in presenting some similarities between A and B?

Or do you mean that (2) said someone said that A and B are the same in some ways?

Because if you're using definition number 1, I don't see any problems with comparing anything to anything. But if you're using definition number 2 — well. To be frank, I can only call this definition stupid and idiotic, and if that's how you understand it, then yes, you do have really bad reading comprehension. And it's clear from quoted Adams text that he "compared" these groups of people as in 1. Not as in 2.

I don't know if you intentionally missed my point.

In his writing he describes how hypnosis can indirectly form associations between two things. This method also gives him plausible deniability, which allows him to say people have bad reading comprehension.

> Adams compares women to children and people with mental disabilities.

What was the point he was trying to make with the comparison? If he said "Like women, children and the mentally disabled have been oppressed by the patriarchy" it would mean something very different from what he did say, but your statement would still apply.

What I'm trying to say is that your first point, on its own, isn't sufficient to condemn him.

This is the issue I have with broad statements like "so-and-so compared X to Y" without specifying what the point of the comparison was. That's the point of a metaphor: to compare two otherwise unlike things in order to show how one has the trait the other also has. If I say a boxer has a glass jaw, I'm not saying his jaw is translucent, just that he is vulnerable to blows in a similar way that it would be if his jaw were made of glass.

This is important because I think people misinterpret metaphors on a regular basis.

I'm not up to date with the Trump stuff but what I thought was particularly disingenuous about the first example was that he said in advance that he was going to write something ambiguous that people would 'misinterpret' and then he made fun of them when it happened.

As far as I'm concerned, if you write something with the goal of communicating a particular idea to a particular audience then that's what you said. It doesn't matter at all what other meanings could be construed and whether they are more logical or not.

If I say something to a few people and I know that one of them will misunderstand it (the reason doesn't really matter) in a way that makes the statement untrue then I've just lied to that person.

On one hand I think he knows exactly what he is doing. He mentions phrasing and word choice in some of his posts.

On the other hand, he might just be completely clueless about race and gender issues. He says things like "If women want to avoid catcalling then why don't they just move? I moved to improve my life."

Maybe a little of column A, and a little of column B.

>"If women want to avoid catcalling then why don't they just move? I moved to improve my life."

Perhaps pointing out the hypocrisy of those actually using that rhetorical construct? Being someone that advocates a society without a state, and often criticizes it, I get that comment thrown at me many times. And people find it a perfectly acceptable and valid retort to what I'm advocating. Maybe putting it in the context of "women" (with gender issues currently being a prominent theme/topic in society), perhaps he can make the users of that construct look at it critically as a bad argument against anything.

Note, haven't actually read Adam's articles about women being mentioned here.

I hate myself for laughing at his comics. Whatever Adams' other, numerous, faults, he does have an amazing economy with words.

> If I say something to a few people and I know that one of them will misunderstand it (the reason doesn't really matter) in a way that makes the statement untrue then I've just lied to that person.

If you can avoid the misunderstanding, then sure. But even then you don't always have the time to explain yourself fully. Sometimes, the very ideas you are expressing are liable to trigger strong emotions in other people. It can't be helped.

But that's why I like his disclaimers. I know ahead of time that the point he is trying to make isn't likely the one that is salient to me on my first pass.

Right, but in this case he actually said in advance that this was what he intended to do. It was the purpose of the post, not a regrettable side-effect.

Don't forget this gem from November: http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/11/21/scott-adams-we-...

Or his insane defense of rapists and harassers: http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2011/06/16/scott-adams-mal...

Disclaimer: I like SA

With that bias out of the way, I would recommend you go back to the source and then judge him.

I can't find the source post for the first one, but the second one is here: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102881545031/pegs-and-holes

If you read it carefully, you will realize that he is not defending rapists, he is saying you can look at the situation as a mental health problem - similar to the EU view of drug abusers - they are not criminals, they are patients.

He has, multiple times on his blog, put forth his theory that humans are 'moist robots' - he does not believe in the concept of free will; so this post is entirely consistent with that.

he does not believe in the concept of free will

That really doesn't do anything to assuage my distaste for the point. It is in fact the very point that is the problem.

Well, the whole concept of "morals" depends on free will, so if you don't really believe in free will, you shouldn't be saying that something should or should not be viewed as moral or not. In your worldview, being "moral" or "immoral" should just be words without a correct definition behind them.

I think he makes valid points, as far as can be inferred from the first articles that probably only quotes things out of context. If you don't see that women and men are treated in different ways then you have massive political correctness glasses clouding your vision. Ever wondered why it is always you who has to take out the garbage (assuming you are male and in a relationship with a woman)?

The second article just seems ridiculous, building up a fantasy straw man just because SA used "pegs and holes" as a metaphor. The article assumes holes are passive and just there to satisfy pegs. SA did not invent penises and vaginas...

What's "the most famous example" you're talking about?

Is this how he trolls? http://misogynistdilbert.tumblr.com/

If I'm trapped in a burning car someday, a man will be the one pulling me out. That's the team I want to be on.

Brilliant!

I have no idea whether you're calling this article trolling or good advice.

This article seems to hold up to my personal anecdata, and that of many of the mentor figures I've had over the years. (I'd also note the 2007 publish date)

However, I've (as with the parent) read some of his writing recently that made me just shake my head and want to stop, and I say this as a die-hard Dilbert fan. His opinions on trump being some sort of personal-image savant at "hacking psychology" (don't recall the actual wording but it was spiritually similar) stand out to me as one I read and felt was somewhat far fetched.

Re: his articles on Trump. I'm not sure if he's right, but I do appreciate that he's been willing to make very specific predictions about the future. So far it seems like he's been pretty good at predicting how things will turn out for Trump. Maybe he's entirely wrong about why, of course.

I don't fault his making predictions; but an occams razor explanation seems FAR more compelling to me, that a character like trump provides an outlet for sentiments that haven't been well served by any _marginally_ viable political candidate. Combined with a boisterous personality (which dovetails well with what seems to be a rising anti-establishment sentiment in certain groups) and celebrity background, it fits neatly into America's tendency to lend more credence than might be deserved otherwise to stars, regardless of their individual domain specific merit. (c.f. other celebrity anti-vaxers and the recurring trend to have non-political notables on political talk shows)

Hindsight bias. Political pros have been predicting his demise for months, then backtracking to explain "what's really going on."

Only Adams has been unwavering in his predictions and the explanations behind them.

There are no celebrity anti-vaxers running for president, and just because non-political notables appear on talk shows doesn't mean they would poll well in Iowa.

I think Adams goes too far in predicting a general election landslide, but I'm impressed he has the balls to do it.

This article is great. I've applied it successfully.

I'm kind of funny + I am an experienced software developer = viral comic.

https://twitter.com/KeLuKeLuGames/status/553404094958694400

I am improving my writing and art skills so I can create higher quality comic strips.

He has written a few articles that stray pretty far from modern Political Correctness orthodoxy; I think that's what is being referred to, not this article in particular.

You discovered that your political views differ from his, and now this somehow invalidates his formerly "great advice"?

On the whole, I think I agree with Scott's advice in this post. However, there are some real challenges that come with the choice to be 'good at a few things' instead of the 'best at one thing. Namely, if you're not starting your own business, I think it massively reduces your employment mobility.

I am fortunate in that I am valued within my organisation for my 'generalist' spread of skills (including communication, development, analysis & sales). It's clear to me how useful it is to be able to approach a problem from several angles and engage with specialists from different areas effectively.

However, if I ever want to move out of my current organisation, I feel as though I would end up taking a significant step backwards in my career because almost all advertised jobs are specialised roles.

This creates a constant pressure in my mind to specialise and focus more on a single area.

I think he would argue that you're better off hacking your way into a job.

That is, don't apply for open positions. Instead, get to know the decision makers and demonstrate your value one on one. (His book has a whole section on networking.)

That's hard to do for someone just out of college, but once you get a little experience it's a sound strategy.

I'm surprised. Most jobs advertised want competence in a range of things, not superstar status at one very specific thing.

Perhaps the difficulty is marketing the range of skills you have in a way that other employers will value?

There's always more work to be done. If you're competent whatsoever, you'll be asked to tackle any unforeseen tasks.

Don't underrate "easy to get along with, get's things done".

That's good advice. Find a niche basically.

It don't think it works for every career though. Being good or even being the most skilled at a niche. Musicians and actors, any job that has as much to do with popularity as with skill. Very few make it and the ones that do, don't seem better than most of the ones that dont.

I have been listening to enough open mic nights and small time bar gigs to think so. Its sad really, how many talented musicians there is in this world that never make it. Music that gives you the chills. And then you put on the radio and its an endless stream of crap.

My career advice would be, don't get into anything that requires popularity. Its a cruel world out there.

Reminds me of Tony Horton (P90X dude). He worked for years as a trainer and aspiring actor/standup comedian. He didn't hit it big until he started making exercise videos when in his forties. The acting and comedic skills combined with the trainer skills made him successful.

Scott says: 1. Become the best at one specific thing. 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

You raise a fascinating point. Following Scott's format. I wonder if a person can: 1. be the very best musician. 2. Be very good at networking (top 25%) or playing at events .

Now my question to you, petke. With those two things, would any person wanting to be a musician be a successful musician?

Good point. Those musicians that made it, maybe they where just better at networking.

The music I tend to like most is these folk type singer/songwriter with an acoustic guitar singing sad songs. A lot of those musicians seem quite introvert and shy, and are probably bad at networking. So it might explain why so many of them don't make it despite their talents.

Haha one of my fav indie singers didn't even bother to reply when I told her her domain was expiring. It's now lost to the shitty secondary market. I guess she gave up. Let me know your email if you'd like to know the artist.

He would suggest learning a secondary skill that makes your musicianship stand out. PDQ Bach is an example.

I knew a guy in college who was an outstanding tuba player. But it's not like there are a ton of tuba gigs out there. So he developed a whole act geared toward kids. Pretty much every conductor has to do at least one children's concert per year, so he's able to distinguish himself as an unorthodox performer that kids love.

"My career advice would be, don't get into anything that requires popularity. Its a cruel world out there."

Sounds like creating a startup versus a normal dev job.

His self-help book is excellent.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still/dp/15...

Thanks for linking this, just purchased a copy the reviews are outstanding.

I'm in the top 25% of quite a few things, and I'm not spending weekends on my 100 foot yacht in the caribbean... probably because I'm in the bottom 25% of motivation. It's good advice, but just a piece of the puzzle.

Same here. But, to be fair to SA, I actually never tried to combine any two of the things I'm good at, I always try to compete/compare myself to people who are the best at one thing and I usually fall short.

Combining talents is an interesting concept.

He talks about motivation in his book. I don't remember the details word for word but he basically says you should optimize for energy, which is key to motivation.

He had a great interview on the Tim Ferris podcast. If I hadn't heard about him there I would have never gotten his book.

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/09/22/scott-adams-the-man-b...

IMO, the crutial point is not just being in the top 25% of some skills. It depends on the skill.

Maybe you only need to be in the top 50% on DIY to get an useful skill but e.g. on juggling maybe you need to be in the top 1% to have a relevant skill.

Very true. And for some skills, like juggling specifically, even the very top might not be good enough:

"Why did Anthony Gatto, the greatest juggler alive — and perhaps of all time — back away from his art to open a construction business?"

http://grantland.com/features/anthony-gatto-juggling-cirque-...

tl;dr Don't try to be the best at something, it's too hard. Be good at a couple of things and make a living in the Venn diagram intersection.

It's a nice idea, but I struggle when I get to "software and ..."

Cartoons? Cycling? DIY?

Software and some other aspect of business: health care, finance, agriculture, shipping, whatever. Your value as a software developer is much higher if you understand the business domain and can actively contribute towards requirements analysis.

I love this advice, and it took me a while to figure out that for me the intersection is Developer Advocacy. Math, software, public speaking, writing, comedy, business = Dev Advocate at a bitcoin company. I'm not great at any of them individually, but good enough at all of them to make a great Developer Advocate. Took a while to convince someone to take a risk on me (I had a technical Biz Dev/PM background prior to my current job) but finally got a company to interview me the right way...they had me present to 20 bitcoin devs about their API as part of the process, and I happily can say I knocked it out of the park. Barring any sudden discovery of me as a stand-up comedian/writer (unlikely at this point) I'm very very happy to make a long, fruitful career of this role.

Anyway, TL;DR: there are always ways to combine software with other skills. The hard part is finding the role that incorporates all of them (whether you invent it as a founder or join someone else).

Finance, statistics, biology, mathematics, energy, manufacturing, education, fitness... (not trying to be condescending here)

I think software could be a great pairing with many other areas. I'm not sure if it's better to have software as a foundation or as second skill to add onto your area of expertise.

Primary skill, if you have ever had to look at the code from self taught bioinformaticians from biology backgrounds.

As a bioinformatician, I completely agree with you. My question is, which contributes more to the field? A specialist enabled by code, or a coder who has learned something of a second field?

The easiest example would be to be better than 75% of developers at front end development & better than 75% of developers at back end development

That skill level would likely make you very valuable to startups.

What about being good at 2 fields of software, like databases and facial recognition?

> Cartoons? Cycling? DIY?

Any of those works. You don't need to be that good at programming if you can figure out a piece of software that one or other of those really needs, and the size of the thing you have to make can be surprisingly small - I mean patio11 got rich off a bingo card creator, just by figuring out a small thing that a certain class of people really needed, making it, and marketing it well.

BCC and AR were pretty modest successes.

I thought you said you sold it for high six figures, or did I misread? Maybe just my lower-middle-class background but that qualifies as rich to me.

If you follow this link you find that BCC reportedly sold for $57,000: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9602092

Ok, that's an order of magnitude below what I was thinking. Sorry for the mistake.

software and marketing (digital or old fashioned)

software and the management of people

software and sales

software and analytics

software and e-commerce

software and design

software and user experience

software and SEO

software and product management

software and quality assurance/testing

The list is endless. If you've got even a basic understanding of how to write software, and you can combine that with one or two additional skills you're a million miles ahead of any other coder even if they're a better coder than you. The reason being that you not only build software, you have an understanding of the dozens of other things that must be performed in order for that software to be turned into a profitable business.

Sales? How much of an edge does being a competent developer anyway provide you when it comes to high margin software selling?

This is good advice for success. On the other hand happiness is not the same thing as success, although they are related. This is the reason I put an unreasonable fraction of my energies into being very good at programming, algorithmization and things like that, instead of better diversifying my portfolio. Programming (the interesting kind) is something that I need to do to be happy.

Scott Adams is one of the last people I would take advice from.

While I happen to agree personally, perhaps this comment would be better with some explanation of why he's so far down the ladder?

He says at the beginning of the article to be in the top 25% at two things, then, at the end of the article he says to be top 25% at three things?

So I'm guessing if we got in the top 25% at 5 things or even 50 billion things it would probably be even better!

My career advice to everyone is this: "Be better than most people at 50 billion things and you will be successful!"

Scott Adams is super brilliant.

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