Do Hackers Need Public Speaking Skills?

I think it depends on what you're doing. If you're a developer who is also the CEO of your company and need to promote it at events then yeah public speaking will be essential.

If you want to pitch your ideas for funding you'll probably have to be a good speaker too. Other than that I think you could get by without it unless you wanted to give talks at developer conferences.

Public speaking isn't easy but I think good programmers tend to be some of the best public speakers. You just need a clear head and know exactly what you want to say.

Look at someone like John Carmack. He has weird ticks but his train of thought is unmatched. He knows the material so well that he can just sit there and speak about a topic without missing a beat.

I think that is the most important thing about speaking publicly. If you take it slow and know exactly what to say then you'll be good at it.

My personal view on the subject is that for a developer these skills are not overly important and there are a lot of job related things I would prioritize learning over public speaking.

If I'm hired to work on solely the technical side of things, just about the only time I'll ever need to speak in a public setting is if i decide to speak at a conference, which is a normally a decision not a job requirement. If I am an entrepreneur then this is a different story however as public speaking is an absolute must have skill.

I'm not saying that it's not a good skill for people to have in general, but as a developer alone I don't think it is relevant enough for me to choose learning over something technical or design.

Thanks for the input, I really do appreciate it.

Perhaps "public speaking" is not the word I'm looking for, what about the ability to communicate effectively, not just to a group of people, but to your boss or to a coworker? Maybe not you specifically, but do you feel like other developers struggle with being heard? And is learning oratorical skills and technical skills mutually exclusive?

First of all, I'd take my opinion with a grain of salt as I have never worked in a corporate setting and every company I have worked at have been very developer centric with the minority being non-technical personal.

I do think the ability to communicate effectively is always important regardless of who you are or what you do as others have said. As far as developers specifically struggling with problems with communication I think that it depends on who they are trying to communicate with. I can't not remember a single developer I have met that had significant difficulty communicating to other people who are technical. Pretty much every one I have met has been quite articulate about technical matters and appear well versed in rhetoric. Now this may be skewed since if in fact they were not able to communicate with other developer then they would not be able to communicate well with me.

This being said I have met developers who have struggled with communication with non-technical personal, but my personal opinion on this is it's the result of a lack of a shared vocabulary with things as oppose to a lack or oratorical skills on ether side.

As far as whether learning oratorical skills and technical skills are mutually exclusive, while they are not the limiting factor is time. I have an ever growing list of languages I'd like to learn, frameworks I'd like to try, work I need to do and side projects I'd like to start. That does not even include my interest in becoming better at design. Even with the little sleep I do get, I am not able to keep up with what I would like to do and I would prioritize these things over learning oratorical skills. But again that is a personal opinion and choice and it is likely there are other who would disagree with me on this.

Thank you for pointing out the technical-nontechnical communication disparity, I feel like that's what I should focus on.

I think public speaking skills are important for developers, not because they have to do public speaking, but because it trains them to distill their thoughts into simpler and finer points. In public speaking, you are trained to take the common denominator, which to some extent "dumbs down" the message, but makes it more comprehensible by anyone. Such a skill would be beneficial to a team, especially if you're trying to explain a bug to QA (who will never have to understand the underlying code), or propose a feature to a superior (will this earn us revenue?). So yeah I think public speaking skills for developers are essential, but not to do public speaking (presenting perhaps?)

It's an interesting question to ask here because Paul Graham has said that he prefers to listen to people who do not speak well in public because they sound more authentic, and it shows they care more about their work than giving a good impression of their work.

My opinion is that people who have had to speak value those skills and everyone else has no idea that it is even a skill, so it will be necessary to teach people that your services are needed or should be wanted.

Edit: Just to be clear, I know Paul must value these skills. I meant by the first paragraph that his idea of good public speaking is at odds with what is commonly considered to be good public speaking.

I appreciate the input, it helps me gauge what people are looking for. I rephrased the question to be more concise and better catered to the needs of this community, if you could let me know your thoughts on this post it would really help, thanks for your time:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5186131

Everyone needs public speaking skills. If only we could just deal with ourselves and no one else. But the reality of life is that you have to interact with others, usually in a public setting. Publick speaking is not just about giving a speech. I took some toastmasters classes (http://http://www.toastmasters.org/) and it really teaches you how to be an effective leader.

Thanks for taking the time to give your input. You seem to understand that public speaking is not just about giving a speech, and is necessary for everyone. How can that be conveyed to developers who believe all they need are technical skills and communication skills are arbitrary?

I think hackers should tell good storys. All consultents and workshops says they must teach "communication skills" and these are just some words for saying: "talk to someone in the level he understands". A Hacker should focus on translating a techstory in the language that everbody can understand. Good Story + Translation for the audience = Public Speaking Skills.

Disclaimer: I'm german and this is my bad school english.

Noted, thanks for your input.

Your English is not bad at all, you conveyed your thoughts in a manner that most importantly is unambiguous. I know exactly what you're saying and that's what is most important.

Yes. Everyone needs at least some. Just like everyone needs at least basic math and basic reading as a minimum.

Thanks for your input, do you feel like this specific community needs to be uniquely addressed?

I think the Y Combinator community is actually better than most at it. In my experience of working with developers in general, yes, especially with new graduates. Two examples come to mind:

A CS graduate I know that was rejected because of his speaking / interacting skills (both were bad) from a job in Silicon Valley. They liked him enough to fly him out and he easily implemented their programming challenges, but they told him that he didn't have the right social skills when it came to speaking (and interacting) with people. They told him as much and it hurt him, but it will only make him better so it was good it happened.

The other example was actually seeing YC alum Alexis Ohanian (YC alum and Reddit founder) in person. He might have always had good at speaking in public, but if he wasn't, he certainly is now. In the middle of his speech, whether he did it consciously or not, his hands became more animated exactly when photographers for the local paper took their photos from the side of the room--Which will obviously make for a more lively shot in the local papers/blogs.

This is really insightful and helps me better understand who my target audience would be.

Is there an email address I could contact you at? I would love to bounce ideas off of you at some point.

Yes.