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Comment by jhall1468 | Hacker News Reader

Linus Torvalds is quirky and has an ego. Steven Wolfram is one of the most arrogant people I've ever read. It comes through in virtually every aspect of his writing.

It's understood that people who are exceptional smart aren't always socially pleasant, but Wolfram is trying to raise that bar by quite a bit.

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In an elite hackers setting, in an offsite camp in the Santa Cruz mountains long ago, this Wolfram character bolted around like a bull in a china shop, finding people to give orders to, basically, and blowing his own horn at many opportunities. It was quite a contrast to the intense hack sessions and co-teaching that was going on at the same time, while serious nerds did what serious nerds do... The news that he screwed dozens of programmers out of the proceeds of Mathematica (1990), exactly matched the in-person behavior. This was before the net was the way it is.. ymmv

Watching his livestreams, he seems like a reasonable guy focused on real work designing a programming language and software. Not sure what you're alluding to in 1990, guess it's been disappeared from the web.

Could he be autistic or something? Usually people would know how they would be perceived if they were well socialized. In any case, it doesn't bother me. He thinks his work is of the utmost importance and wants to be in the annals of mathematics alongside Newton, Einstein, etc. He won't be, but let him have his fun. He's at least doing interesting things, unlike these unbearable celebrities that are incredibly dull, but everyone fawns over. I hereby transfer the right of ego from the mainstream celebs to the scientists.

Relevant: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/06/you-dont-understand-ord...

;-)

By the way, he is in the annals of particle physics...

Awesome letter, thank you. Feynman was a genius in more than one way. In a way, all great teachers have the ability to see into us.

I wonder how Wolfram received this letter. It's an amazing historical letter.

He might be, but none of the spectrum people I know have an ego like Wolfram's.

http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/04/monumental_egos.... "I suggest we call the unit of ego the Wolfram"

How is he arrogant? Here he is clearly proud of his personal infrastructure and wants to share it with the world. What is arrogant about that?

Who cares if he’s arrogant? Linux is a mean bastard and Stallman is a weirdo who eats stuff of his feet during interviews. None of these people are well balanced great guys you’d take to the pub to watch football, but that’s not why their impressive in what they do and accomplish.

Linus is mean, but aware of it and actively working on it. Stallman is harmlessly weird. Wolfram thinks he's the smartest person on the planet when he's objectively not.

You are correct in that these are not the reasons they are impressive. It's the reason (in Linus and Wolframs case) they aren't particularly good people.

You should have to suffer brilliant assholes.

> Wolfram thinks he's the smartest person on the planet when he's objectively not.

That was definitive. How is he objectively not? How are you defining the smartest person on the planet. By what criteria?

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