The Reign of Introverts Is Here | Hacker News Reader

The Reign of Introverts Is Here

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51 pointsbhalina78 comments

> High-paying careers favor those with the stomach for deep, solitary work.

Where can I get some of this high-paid, deep, solitary work? These days software engineering is ultra-collaborative, and I doubt anybody would say that doctors/nurses, managers, finance people, or lawyers are doing deep, solitary work.

Deep, Solitary work does not mean non-collaborative.

You can, without talking to a single human being, complete design reviews, claim and fix 1000s of bugs, review PRs, update and ship documentation or releases, etc etc.

Deep Solitary just means "asynchronous", "uninterrupted", and "self-scheduled" in this context.

Where can I get some of this high paid, asynchronous, uninterrupted, and self-scheduled work?

No it doesn’t.

Reviewing other people’s PR is a collaborative task, fixing bugs "reported by others" is a collaborative work, updating docs and release notes for "other" stakeholder's consumption is collaborative work.

Unless you're building a house deep in the woods for you by you, you're collaborating with other people on different levels.

Let's be honest, introversion is a gradient scale, maybe we've shifted a bit more towards cutting out the office Watercooler talks but everything we do as a species is still highly collaborative.

Exactly, those are obviously "collaborative" things that can happen by people working alone and without every seeing or talking to another person.

The definition of collaborative that includes "In person" is just wrong.

Not only do top software engineers or designers need to work in ultra-collaborative environments - even if that were not the case, and regardless of these being highly paid professionals, their rise in prominence will in no way shift "the balance of wealth and power" in the world.

If someone thinks that paying a small group of people six-figure salaries will shift any type of balance in the world, they need to take a hard look at their assumptions and views.

The article lacks any intellectual rigor.

Yeah, I dont believe this. Maybe "favor those with the stomach for deep, solitary work, who can also easily context switch to meetings where they use their natural sales and political skills to get buy-in for what they are doing". There may be some rare environments where good deep workers are well supported by management and have someone else to interpret and "sell" what they've done, but it's a rarity. Even the best work needs to be well communicated, positioned within the context of what the org is doing, etc, which always favors collaboration and social skills

I think it depends on the definition of that "deep solitary work". Writing a report for an hour or so can feel like extremely deep and extremely solitary, even though it's just a trivial report.

Times are approaching some sort of a surreal sort of balancing act where you're both required to be a super deep thinker and a "10x"er AND a happy go-to yes-man that deals with all of the 9 circles of corporate bureaucracy with a smile on your face.

I believe this is exactly what happens to young large industries that grew way too fast, went into politics and now everyone wants a piece of the pie.

These days software engineering is ultra-collaborative,

The rub is that it's both "deep, solitary" and ultra-collaborative. (Not for all, but for many, for some value of "deep"). That's what makes it such a demanding job, when done right.

Of course many managers don't care about / can't tell between "done right, or at least adequately right" or not, but that's a different topic.

I doubt anybody would say that doctors/nurses, managers, finance people, or lawyers are doing deep, solitary work.

Medical researchers, finance quants, and yes, (certain kinds of) lawyers all regularly do work that is, if not monastically solitary (or as deep as doing a math PhD) -- definitely much more focused than what is realistically possible in most open-plan, junk food driven, "just add the button the customer is crazy for it" development environments.

And in an case, much more focused than what their managers will most likely ever be capable of.

Came here to say this. I picked this profession largely so I could sit in an air conditioned office and listen to music all day and not have to interact with people.

Now, I'm supposed to be some rock star.

They didn't say those careers had enough vacants for every introvert.

Forget Reign, I doubt if an introvert could even survive LinkedIn as that's where they hunt for talent.

LinkedIn's algorithm overwhelmingly favors conformists, On any typical day 'Look what I have done, Why are people not doing this, To be great like me ...' type posts can get 30,000 likes and an Introvert can't even compete with that.

The issue of conformity does persist in all social media, But LinkedIn has taken it to a whole new level and that a professional is expected to have an LinkedIn account deserves special scrutiny as it's biased.

The reign of the introverts is definitely not here nor will it ever be.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that most people in this industry think they're introverts, when actually they're just a victim of extremely poor working environments, i.e. open plan offices.

No other industry I can think of has such a disparity between what an employee needs for the best productivity versus what they're given by their employer, i.e. solitude to concentrate.

The longer I've spent away from an open plan office, the more sociable I've become, especially over the last 15 months.

Similarly as you rise 'up the ladder', you have to communicate more, you cannot be an introvert.

I also think introversion is confused with social exhaustion.

If you crave some alone time after several hours on back-to-back meetings, you’re not necessarily an introvert, you’re just human.

> Similarly as you rise 'up the ladder', you have to communicate more, you cannot be an introvert.

Introverts can be excellent communicators both in 1:1 and group settings. Introversion doesn’t equal shyness. I’m an introvert who communicates all day at work. When work is done, I’m quiet and recharge.

First, I do think you’re right that open floor plans and many other factors have a major impact on people in this industry. Introversion is one potential contributor to why this is a big deal.

But something about the way you’re describing introversion doesn’t quite match the traditional introvert’s reality.

> Similarly as you rise 'up the ladder', you have to communicate more, you cannot be an introvert.

Having to communicate more (and being successful at it) do not make one an extrovert. Anecdotal: I’ve risen up the ladder, and I am without question, an introvert. The difference between me and my extroverted colleagues is that they’re energized by it, and I’m not. I have to take intentional steps to recharge later, while they're charged up by the process itself. This also means that I'm not better or worse than my extroverted colleagues at communicating or climbing the ladder, I just need to think about my source of energy differently.

While I’m sure there is some truth to the broader issues caused by shared work spaces, etc. I also find that the concept of introversion/extroversion is often not what people think it is.

Introverts can be well adjusted, social, and easy to talk to. People often mistake the lack of these traits for introversion, and while there can be some overlap in observed behaviors at times, the two should not be confused.

This is itself an unfounded conspiracy theory.

I don't see remote work necessarily helping introverts since communication and online social connection is even more important when it doesn't happen by simply being in the same physical space. There is also even less social context to draw upon which is a problem for people who struggle in understanding social nuance. Introverts can very easily not make the extra effort to stay connected with co-workers which will put them at a disadvantage in terms of promotions and so on.

I can see it helping those who have things like social anxiety with in person communication but that's very different from being an introvert.

> There is also even less social context to draw upon which is a problem for people who struggle in understanding social nuance.

I find that very beneficial though as people know that written situations lack context (so they add more info) and are more accepting of misinterpretations (so there is a lower penalty).

I don't agree with this. I oftentimes see colleagues from "distant" teams who have a tendency to use their own, opaque acronyms even when they specifically look for me to help them with something. My first response is always, basically, "what's XYZ?".

I think people have a tendency to assume that their context is shared by the other people.

Also, on a wider level, I think that the infamous "twitter wars" are due to people taking short sentences out of context. Of course, this is likely not the only reason, but it's probably a contributor.

My experience in the past has been the opposite. People who communicated face to face were less likely to scream at each other than people who communicated by text.

Video helps with that in remote work, but it's still not everything, and introverts tend to shy away from that as well.

During Covid, I think a lot of people are also feeling stressed in weird new ways, and so there's a lot of empathy for whatever people are going through right now. Without it, I think tempers would flare quicker.

> Expect the balance of wealth and power to shift accordingly

Haha, no, absolutely not. Power and wealth will still be accumulated primarily through persuading and influencing others. Good luck accumulating significant capital without that!

I hope we understand that influencing others can happen without meeting them in a room on their schedule? If we do, then perhaps the general zeitgeist will evolve to recognize the superpower therein?

> I hope we understand that influencing others can happen without meeting them in a room on their schedule

OK, but this marginally favors introverts, if at all.

People will still need to be aggressive in building relationships and influencing them. Does this sound to you like something introverts would enjoy, even if they're able to do it on Zoom?

Me and some other introverts I know actually find Zoom calls more draining than in person conversations. Not sure why.

I'm not sure I'm an introvert, I think I live in a broad range between the two poles, but I definitely notice that sometimes too.

In that case, it might favour "people who can type fast", not "introverts".

It depends how you define wealth and power. I mean, $200k at Apple may not be super wealthy or super powerful, but it is still way better than retail work.

People have been making that type of money at Apple before the pandemic, so nothing has changed.

Also, Apple is making everyone return to the office 3x per week. So much for the Rise of the Introverts...

...or, even better, inheritance.

I've always felt that the introvert/extrovert dichotomy is such an oversimplification that it fails to be useful as a form of categorization. The degree to which someone is outgoing vs reserved is highly context dependent: maybe an individual is extraverted in their personal life but more restrained in a professional environment. Measuring these things is also so subjective that much of this is just a wash. Pieces of business-pop psychology like this one seem mostly designed to tell their audience wants to hear with just enough of an edge to provoke engagement.

This is how I feel about most categorizations. I did some research the other night about problems with categorization, but surprisingly couldn't find much.

While categorization is good for quick communication, it usually abstracts too much. Rather than category, we should see things as types? Maybe this is one in the same?

Being introvert vs extrovert is not about how one acts in social situations but whether one finds social situations draining or giving energy.

For some introverts that translates into avoiding social activity, but that is by no means a given.

I like many social situations and can be outgoing and animated in the right context, but no matter how much I might enjoy that, it is still exhausting to me, and that is what makes me introverted. I need solitude to recharge.

In this classification, it begs the question, do extroverts feel drained and demotivated when not in social contexts?

I think that's generally the idea. Extroverts drain their "battery" in isolation and recharge in social settings.

I wonder if that's the case... I'd consider myself an extrovert, but when I'm alone I don't really feel drained or anything, just kind of at peace and doing my thing. And when I'm with others I just get extra excited and motivated, I guess I do need other people once in a while to tell about what I've been doing or working on "when alone" to keep myself motivated, but that's about it, I never really get a feeling of exhaustion or needing to "recharge".

Good idea and poorly written.

This low-brow content should really be posted on Reddit and not HN: 1. Definition of Introvert is wrong: introvert can be gregarious, loud, and fun at parties. Introvert vs extrovert is more determined by where you get your energy from. 2. Mostly copies idea from this article [1]

[1] https://marker.medium.com/context-sensitivity-and-the-introv...

I'd argue that bad content shouldn't be posted anywhere.

Is there any good research to support "introvert vs extrovert is more determined by where you get your energy from" or is it just one of those folk wisdoms like power posing and ego depletion?

I'm not sure actually, it was taught at my college's psy 101 class

While there is definitely a real notable shift to be described here, I wouldn't want to go as far as saying that being an introvert is a true advantage over being an extrovert now (similarly, I wouldn't describe people like Bezos and Zuckerberg as 'quiet' - they are definitely spending their days communicating with a lot more people than I do, rather than programming alone in their bedrooms. Sure they're not taking interviews from journalists all day, but why would they?).

I make this comment because the largest mistake I made in my adolescence was continually being too quiet, which later on I realized made just about any goal I had harder on myself, whether it was basic networking, meeting potential co-founders, customers, partners, or whatever it may be. It took me many years to realize how to be extroverted in a much more effective way, and even longer to become comfortable with things like cold-emailing people to ask for things.

The skills and mindset of an introvert may be more valuable now, but knowing when you should put on your extrovert hat is still one of the highest ROI skills that one can learn (and also can be pretty difficult for many introverted mindsets to become comfortable with).

Companies cannot grow and be successful without a wide variety of roles. And different roles tend to attract different personality types. The personality type for sales and the personality type for accounting are likely to have much less overlap than the personality types for media relations and human resources. It's not hard to imagine the archetype for each of those roles, and they are typically distinct personalities.

The gamut of personality types includes both introverts and extroverts. And not only are those not the only two, even among introverts and extroverts, there are degrees of introversion and extroversion.

Companies need all types to be optimally successful. Conflating personality types with goodness and badness is simply creating conflict. Don't fall for it.

> Some of the most successful introverts — Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet

But, who says they are?

I don't think Gates, Bezos or Zuck fit the "introvert" profile. Of course they are technical, but not necessarily introverted.

Introvert vs. Extrovert isn't really backed by anything.

Perhaps an equally meaningful title would be "the reign of gemini is here" and we could all enjoy that cosmopolitan article together :')

I think the article is referring to the way introverts vs. extroverts think.

The work is always going to be collaborative, that is a given and the purpose of teams, but the shift right now is that as data and tech becomes more prevalent, the old times when extroverts governed by mere non-technical skills is going to wane in importance, because everything could be automated and quantified, leading to less room for human BS to climb the corporate ladder.

As the article mentions which I totally agree, communication becomes more important as you move up the ladder. But here is the key: it is easier for a technical person to learn soft skills than for a nontechnical person to do the reverse.

That is why the combination of engineering + MBA is so dangerous. It is because introverts are not given/interested in the chance to rule, that we don't see it often. But for a future where tech is going to dominate almost every industry, a firm's survival is going to depend on introverts.

For those interested, I recommend reading the book "Quiet" by Susan Cain, it explains this pretty well.

>Quiet nerds are now revered as the next generation of powerful and wealthy. Why? Because they, most likely, will be.

lol what? More stereotypes?

I think the author is making a lot of assumptions here. I'll break them down.

> High-paying careers favor those with the stomach for deep, solitary work.

I assume he means programming. Just because you work in a solitary environment doesn't mean you're an introvert. It really more requires the ability to focus more than anything in my experience. I've known a bunch of great programmers who were also extroverts.

> In-person schmoozing has taken a backseat to an online workday where the ability to self-motivate matters most.

I don't think this has changed because promotion is based largely on human bias more than anything. Making an impression on someone is still as important as it ever was, we just do it using a different medium. (zoom, teams, slack, email).

> Crafting a witty one-liner on apps determines your dating success — not the ability to pick someone up at a bar.

It might get you a date, but your personality gets you the second date.

Unfortunately, the balance of power will inherently never tip to introverts for the simple reason that introverts generally do not want power over other people. We want power over our own situations. We want to be left alone. That social power over others is then claimed by those who desire it.

If the reign of introverts is here, then the introverts should hold enough power to get technology and/or laws that will actually stop spam phone calls and texts. Those things are brutal to introverts. The deeper you are in thought, the more damaging they are.

Or they could use the 'do not disturb' function on their phone.

One of the changes due to WFH that I'm happiest about is how all meetings are now online, which makes my inability* to find the right time to take a turn speaking in a conversation less of a problem (since it's possible to "raise a hand" in most online meeting apps, or just drop a message in chat.) Better still, most meetings can be converted to emails, so this situation doesn't arise in the first place. I don't think most people realise how much anxiety this kind of stuff causes "introverts".

* Also shared by most people with ADHD.

I also like that I can effectively opt out of the meeting just by moving my real work to my forward facing monitor and putting the meeting on the side.

Extroverts are mentally ill usually suffering from ADHD. This propaganda that extroverts are somehow normal and to aspire to...is just that, propaganda from the noisy, mentally ill extrovert.

I have a few counterpoints to those made in the article:

- As much as current developments have made for more accommodating work/social environments for introverts, I wouldn't go as far as to say that "introverts have the upper hand". If anything, I would say the shift towards increasingly digital modes of interaction tends to reward those with a flair for self-advocacy even more -- just think about who tends to dominate discourse in online forums/social media/conference calls. I personally rely heavily on non-verbal cues to express myself/gauge others in social settings but there isn't really a channel for that type of expression in digital environments. That in turn leads to me feeling like I need to be more verbally engaged despite that not being my natural inclination, which then feeds back into a spiral of mental exhaustion -> degraded conversation and thinking -> more exhaustion.

- The characterization of extroverts as shmoozers and social climbers and introverts as doing "actual work" is rather unfair -- in the past, I've worked with both "introverts" who recognized they could skate by just doing the bare minimum to say they did something in standup and staying out of the way of everyone else and "extroverts" who would actively drop by to check if I needed help with anything. Moreover, in roles like that of a technical lead or solutions architect, being able to clearly articulate and discuss designs is a far more important skill than being a code-cranking steam engine which by the definitions of the article are "extroverted" qualities. When it comes to implementation I'd agree that heads-down, interruption-free environments are the most conducive, but the further I progress as a software engineer the more I've come to realize that implementation is only the tip of the iceberg.

I think introverts as characterized in the article do have it as good as ever as employees, but that is still far from a "reign of introverts". With the growing trends of creator economies and self-employment, self-advocacy is only going to become an even more crucial skill set and mentality to develop -- I can anecdotally attest that the notion that dedication to your craft alone is enough to carry you is a fallacy, and I think those most prone to burnout/depression in creative and self-employed endeavors are those who don't anticipate the level of self-advocacy needed to break through.

One thing I have noticed when WFH is that random calls are more disruptive than someone calling to your desk. When someone calls to your desk you're already in that environment. When someone calls you when WFH they're entering your environment - if that makes sense.

I also notice that status update meetings seem to be more common.

You can choose to not answer (not always, but sometimes).

“Meyerhof was about to pass on down the list when the summons came.

It wasn’t really a summons. No one could summon a Grand Master. It was only a message that Division Head Trask would like very much to see Grand Master Meyerhof if Grand Master Meyerhof could spare him the time.

Meyerhof might, with impunity, have tossed the message to one side and continued with whatever he was doing. He was not subject to discipline.

On the other hand, were he to do that, they would continue to bother him—oh, very respectfully, but they would continue to bother him.”

— Jokester, Isaac Asimov, 1956 <https://archive.org/details/Infinity_v01n06_1956-12_LennyS-c...>

True, and I do if its an unprompted call with no obvious reason.

I disagree. I hate being at the office and at the mercy of whoever wants to walk by and talk to me. Even if I have an excuse for not talking, I'm still disrupted. At home, all interactions are filtered through my laptop, which is more predictable and manageable.

I wonder how much other traits and attributes that previously had high benefit have fallen off due to the increased amount of remote work.

For example, there is some correlation with being tall and being successful. Probably similar for attractiveness things that don't show up in a video of just your face.

It is not so much about intorversion vs. extorverson but rather IQ. Similar the 2008 financial crisis, the biggest losers of the Covid crisis and its recovery are the untalented, whose jobs are pay little and are replaceable and interchangeable like cogs. And the biggest winners, similar again to the post-2008 recovery, are the talented, whose wages exceed inflation and whose contributions are valued and are harder to replace.

Yet I have heard about plenty of people in major tech cmpanies like google and apple feeling like they are in a rut despite the good pay. So if you measure satisfaction by just money you miss out on other factors. It's not like a tech job guantees a path to deep and fulfilling work.

IQ and pay are not related

They're correlated. The correlation is not 1, of course, but definitely positive. (Won't provide references -- there's plenty on the internet.) People in the bottom 30 percentile earn way less than people in the top 30.

I dunno why this is such a hard concept for people to understand

Imagine you want to earn money and thus you need learn a skill. Which would earn you more money: learning to code or learning to stock shelves.

Those people would argue that learning to code has nothing to do with IQ.

> Imagine you want to earn money and thus you need learn a skill. Which would earn you more money:

learning to code or learning to weld? Highly skilled work is highly paid work.

Talent, pay and IQ (if you believe it’s valid) have almost no correlation. Without question, the people I know earning them most money are rich kids and I assure you they are neither talented nor intelligent.

There are incredibly talented musicians out there that can’t even afford rent and genius mathematicians are rarely seen purchasing a yacht.

> There are incredibly talented musicians out there that can’t even afford rent and genius mathematicians are rarely seen purchasing a yacht.

Sorry, but anecdotes are really problematic (i.e. useless) when evaluating correlation between variables.

Research puts IQ - income correlation to around 0.4, if my memory serves.

I’d like to see some research to back that up. Here’s an article that says otherwise:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-...

Common sense will tell you billionaires aren’t orders of magnitude smarter than the rest of us.

The researcher starts out by admitting that IQ is correlated to income and wealth[1], then keeps adding factors to the model until the IQ factor is statistically redundant. If you think this method is sufficient to say two variables are not correlated, then nothing is correlated. Excluding wealth, none of the variables listed were more strongly correlated with income than IQ.

1. "Each point increase in IQ test scores is associated with $202 to $616 more income per year,”

> If you think this method is sufficient to say two variables are not correlated, then nothing is correlated.

And thus you’ve discovered why social “science” is not science at all. IQ is a nebulous concept anyway. Yes, if you’re cognitively impaired, there are lots of things you can’t do and that will impact your pay but higher income is related to who you know, not what you do.

That newscientist article is a bit old (from 2007) but seems to support sz4kerto's claim that income is correlated with IQ.

“Each point increase in IQ test scores is associated with $202 to $616 more income per year,”

That study claims that the income increase associated with higher IQ doesn't necessarily translate into increased average wealth though as other life style factors may offset the increased average income.

Both sets of "verts" have historically had their realms, strongholds and fiefdoms. What may have changed is where the profits are now increasingly flowing from...

As an introvert myself, I found the book “Quiet” by Susan Cain to be an excellent read on the differences, strengths, and weaknesses of introverts vs extroverts.

I want to like this because I’m an introvert and a wfh advocate, but it doesn’t make a very good case. Gates and Musk aren’t successful because they are introverts, they’re are successful because they are sociopaths from rich families.

I'd be more receptive to the discussion if they didn't seem to be so "rub it in your face" about it.

I have gotten the feeling that introverts (especially those who write about it on blogs) have a chip on their shoulder about silly things like "needing to communicate clearly" or "having to interact with other human beings".

If you want to be successful, you need to know how to communicate clearly, and you need to be diplomatic and know how to affect the outcome you're looking to. "How to win friends and influence people" is still a good book to read on the subject. And what the hell is that "dating app" section, as if "witty one liners on an app" is somehow a contrast, or even a good thing, compared to meeting people at a bar or social event? The whole article is whack.

As someone who has historically been an extrovert but has become more introverted in the past two years, I feel like I have gotten a handicap - I feel I have lost skills that I need to regain.

I also think the WFH revolution (and the glee with which it is embraced) is a pendulum on the far end of positive, which I think will swing back a bit when people realize all the dreams of WFH don't materialize. Many people won't become nomadic. Many people won't move to that low-cost midwest city, save hundreds of thousands and FIRE at 45. All the things people are taking for granted now, like having an existing network of work contacts from the pre-covid days) will evaporate, and they'll be left trying to replicate what they took for granted, from home.

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