My Heroes | Hacker News Reader

My Heroes

jacquesmattheij.com

59 pointsamirmc25 comments

I can't help but feel overtones of contempt when reading this.

"They typically don't get statues and for the most part are vastly overshadowed by those that profited from their work more than they ever did."

I read that as: Steve Jobs stole Steve Wozniak's thunder. That is to say "Wozniak was overshadowed by Jobs", or "Jobs profited off the back of Wozniak's work". As if what Steve Jobs did wasn't worthy of adoration.

There's this sort-of battle that is constantly waged between those who create (programmers, engineers, etc), and those who hustle (entrepreneurs, non-tech founders, bizdev, salesmen etc). Both creators and hustlers feel under-appreciated and under-recognized for their respective talents. It's a vicious cycle. I really question why it has to be this way.

I'm a bit of a cross-over, so I relate to both camps. The conflict is frustrating to me, because the validity of either side's argument is supported only when one attempts to marginalize the other. There's no good reason that these two types of people shouldn't be 100% complimentary.

I'm definitely more in the hustler camp than I am the creator camp. I can throw down some code (poorly), and I do all the sysadmin work for our start-up (and a fair job, I might add), but I'm far more of a hustler. I like people; a lot. I'm a connector. I fit the "makes friends easily" mold, and I leverage it to good effect.

But here, I think, is the key to my modest success. I have a tremendous amount of respect for creator talent. I think the fact that I've actually tried the creator's craft has a lot to do with it. I can read most high-level languages (Ruby, Python, PHP, Javascript), and having written some libraries of my own, I can look at something and know that it is elegant; or that it isn't. When I find someone with talent, I let them know that I recognize it, and not by patronizing them. I let them know by listening when they talk, and recognizing that when it comes to engineering, I can ask questions, but I should respect their views and give them the ultimate say in technical matters.

From a hustler perspective, I can tell you that I rarely get the reciprocal effort from creators. I know that's painting with a broad brush, but that's my experience. As frequently as hustlers marginalize creators, creators rarely recognize that hustlers are the ones with the most customer facing contact. I agree that the customer doesn't always ask the right questions, but I can't tell you how many times I've sat down with a creator and been stone-walled on requests that seem perfectly legitimate to me and the customer, but creators find deplorable. I end up selling to creators as much as I do to customers. That can be really frustrating to feel like someone doesn't have your back.

A large part of the respect I have for Steve Jobs stems from two things:

* He was able to motivate creators in a way that few people could

* He was able to get the world to pay attention to creators' achievements

Steve Jobs could not have become what he was without Steve Wozniak, but the converse is also true. Steve Wozniak may have never created a "personal computer" if Jobs hadn't asked him to. The world may not have paid attention if he had created it without Steve Jobs to hustle the idea. We can't know.

Neither of these two men deserve to be marginalized. The same is true of every talented creator and hustler out there. They're all deserving of the hero title.

If you aren't able to do the work yourself, then you'll never gain the respect of your coworkers/employees.

Bill Gates was a pretty good software developer. And you're not Steve Jobs.

I may not gain your respect, but how can you speak for my coworkers and employees?

Also, how is the fact that I'm not Steve Jobs relevant? Do you feel that I need to be taken down a notch? It's ok if you do. I'm asking because your reply is terse, so I'm not sure how to take it.

I'm not trying to diminish you or your argument, which was in fact quite a good read.

You said that it is very annoying having to sell ideas to both customers and your creators. Well, that's a given because creators are quite stubborn people. But creators listen to other capable creators, for which they have enough respect to just trust without much questioning.

You will always struggle to get creators to do what you want, unless you are a creator yourself that can get shit done. For software engineering, it does not matter that you're brilliant in so many other ways if you are not capable of doing the job yourself (and you mentioned that you can code a little, but I don't think that's enough).

Look for example at Linus Tolvards (since he was on the author's list). He said so himself that he doesn't do much coding these days and his main talent is to get other people to work for him. But he can start stuff like nobody else, his knowledge is unparalleled and when he talks people listen.

About Steve Jobs, it is relevant because he's kind of a role model. But Steve Jobs is also a product of the right circumstances. You cannot be like Steve Jobs without having Wozniak as your best friend (this works both ways, Wozniak also benefited greatly from his friendship with Steve Jobs).

Thanks for expanding on your comments. I suspect you're right. I work with a lot of other people in the hustler camp, none of which can write any code at all, and I find it much, much easier to get things done (with my team). When you can sit down with a creator and talk their language -- and understand their challenges -- it's a lot easier to relate to them. As a hustler, you have to know when to advocate for your creator. Nothing brings a creator in to the fold better than having their back in a client/project group meeting.

"Behind each of these names lies a story worth telling, and ... there are 100's more like it that you'd have never heard of"

So true. We all stand on the shoulders of giants but it's not often that we look down to see who they really are (probably different for each of us).

My absolute hero is Richard Feynman. Required reading:

- "Surely You're Joking"

- "What Do You Care What Other People Think"

- http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm "Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle" (Challenger disaster report)

- Also, consider torrenting videos of his "Messenger Lectures". The youtube snippets do not nearly do them justice. They're some of the most intellectually interesting things you'll ever watch:

Richard_Feynman_Messenger_Lectures_at_Cornell_-_The.Character.of.Physical.Law_-_Part_1_The_Law_of_Gravitation

Part_2_The_Relation_of_Mathematics_to_Physics

Part_3_The_Great_Conservation_Principles

Part_4_Symmetry_in_Physical_Law

Part_5_The_Distinction_of_Past_and_Future

Part_6_Probability_and_Uncertainty

Part_7_Seeking_New_Laws

There's also a small series of Feynman that has been put on Youtube called "fun to imagine." They are short and most of them are very good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI

There's also a lovely three part series: Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E

Richard Feynman's Messenger Lectures can be viewed here (Silverlight required):

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html

Nice list, Jacques. My list of heroes is shorter and even more obscure:

Samuel Weissman & Louis Marcus

My grandfathers

There were two of the smartest people I ever met, but neither ever went to school a single day of his life. Both worked very hard and succeeded at everything they tried. I imagine that if they had been born 80 years later, we may admiring their Silicon Valley achievements right now.

Both came to the U.S. very young and alone, surely knowing that they would never see their birthplace or most of their friends and relatives ever again. They did it to build a better life for themselves and their families.

And they did it all for me, long before I even existed.

That's why I have to succeed; I could never let them down.

I don't want to overstate this, and it's been brought up before, but I find it interesting to consider the matter of heroes we don't personally know versus those we do.

I don't know whether this has changed, over recent decades. But it seems that we have so much "media attention", these days, that many things we at least ascribe as being very significant to us are actually at great remove from our personal lives.

I don't mean this by way of judgment, but by way of reflection. And introspection: Who has really influenced me, and am I acknowledging -- to myself, or to them -- their roles in my life? Am I using such understanding to make my own decisions and in my own actions?

Taking this a bit further -- perhaps too far and potentially getting a bit judgmental: Am I trying to be on the billboard, or the organization that decides whether the billboard is a good idea for the neighborhood?

Jacques points out : "My heroes are not 'sexy', they don't wear hip gear or use cool gadgets...", but, Woz owns every apple product ever made... He was also in the line for iPhone 4S. An exception.

Thanks for that, J. The cargo cult and cult of personality junk sometimes gets under my skin. You're going to catch some heat for fighting it, but it's always the good fight. Rock on!

It's interesting that antirez mentioned in a blog post that Steve Jobs was not his hero, because he values different types of contributions and accomplishments. His post got flagged and removed from HN, whereas this one seems to be fine. I guess it a matter of saying the same basic thing in different ways and with different context.

At least post-MS Gates does deserve some esteem imo. He's putting his billions to work into bettering the world in ways that are registering before our very eyes, after all.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3128320

It seems to me that he's made a careful calculation about how he can make the biggest difference in the world, and has set about doing it.

salman khan? along with those names?

I'm sure Salman Khan would agree with you.

Now let's give it 50 years and we'll see how 'Global Free Education on any subject that matters' sounds.

You may be right - although I find myself inadequate to predict 6 months hence not to talk of 50 years. It just seemed the easiest 'odd man out' scenario so I commented.

The interesting bit is that in 50 years or so people will likely go "Salman Who?".

Nice list, but it is only me that see a problem with the fact that only 2/3 names here are not from English-speaking world?

No. This isn't meant to be a your list or everyone's list, its Jacques' list. I'm going to assume his list is going to include people he's familiar with and those likely skew English speaking. Mine would too because that's what I know.

I don't know Jacques, but based on his name I'd guess that he's not even from the English-speaking world anyway.

It's no secret, though, that English speakers have had an influence on history far out of proportion to their numbers. The world didn't have to work out that way, it's just that it did.

You seem to confound History and the history of web startups in the last 20 years.

I fear HN id slowly becoming us-centric, it's sad. Now I feel like a stranger, more and more.

So, what's your list?

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