I live in Columbus too. Its a huge start-up city. Some label it as the next Silicon Valley because of Battelle, Ohio State, and the SIGNIFICANTLY lower cost of living.
Eric--for the above-average engineer (lets call him a 3X-5X), but not a 10X or 100X engineer--what advice would you give if they were interested in beginning a tech venture? How much does personal will play a factor compared to personal ability? Do they stand a chance to compete? Can you think of founders that have achieved great success despite lacking supreme talent? And, finally, to expand a little-- can you think of a character trait that is MOST important for a founder to possess other than great intelligence / clever execution?
There are so many assumptions baked into these questions that it's a little hard to answer. First of all, I'm not a fan of the "10X engineer" framing. I'm much more interested in the systems that companies can build to create 10X teams.
I am thinking of two conventional "10X engineers" right now that I've worked with in my career. One is extremely loud, brash, judgmental and basically scary. If you are brave enough to come to him with a question, and he thinks it's stupid, you will basically never live it down. The second is extremely humble, quiet, and gentle. If you come to him with a question, he probably won't answer it but will show up two days later with a fully-implemented solution that he created at 2am just to see if it was possible.
In most companies, the first 10X engineer tends to get promoted to a position of seniority, while the second is generally allowed to quietly leave the company when they get bored. And don't even get me started on all the incredibly talented people out there who our biased hiring processes can't ever identify as "10X."
If you ever get the chance to mingle with some of the truly famous founders, ask yourself if they strike you as the smartest people you've ever met. Now, many of us get star-struck when we meet people who are rich and powerful, and we rationalize whatever garbage comes out of their mouths as genius utterances, because deep down we're all still primates. But if you can get past that, you'll notice that a lot of really successful founders (and investors for that matter) aren't especially bright or thoughtful. But they do have other critical character traits that helped them succeed. Here's a PG classic on the subject: http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html
He also has a great essay about the importance of grit and determination but I can't quite remember the title.
Ha ha oh man, sam. seriously: do you think about what you post at all before you hit submit?
you wanted to have a discussion behind closed doors before announcing this to the entire world? ok, that's fine, but that begs the question "why?"
given human nature, it's probably for nefarious purposes and propaganda control. I'm thinking you regret this bet, have realized it has only accelerate d the bubbles collapse, and are attempting serious efforts at damage control.
look, your a smart guy, sam, but you are pretty terrible at this whole communication thing, which is a shame considering that's a major part of your job.
this comment reads like the "why is this on HN?" comments, which are against the guidelines. people are voting this up and they find it interesting, and that's why it's on the home page. just click the flag button.
If the implication here is that Sam Altman and OP are pompous enough to think we care what they think about the state of the Tech economy, then wouldn't the same logic apply to the authors who write "the Tech bubble is bursting! The world is ending!" articles?
Sam Altman and the OP posted their own content to Hacker News. The articles are usually posted by a totally different person than the one that wrote it.
In any case, there is a difference between writing bombastically about a situation you are financially involved in and a journalist writing an article about tech.
Can someone who is informed on this shed some light on its shortcomings? I know this is new, but the article on the bill is a bit too supportive that it feels highly biased. I can't help but feel that the line about collection on foreign enemies for WMD's is some sort of loophole. I agree with bkurtz--its surprising how few people care about Snowden's revelations.
No it isn't. The NSA doesn't have to exist at all. It didn't used to. Its questionable that they do anything positive. The discussion is very much worthwhile.
i think the "poorly written terrible analogy" has been upvoted to rank #3 (as i see it now) because it points out a paradoxical logic. The key point of the article is when he points out that the rich wouldn't care to keep their $1000. When the reader first sees the tagline, they are intrigued because it makes no sense to give bill gates $1000. Through the analogy, one can see though, why it does. I think the purpose of the analogy is exactly that point--and not one to try and match the real-world dilemma. Also... to the comment about going to law-school and no shortage of good housing-- you are not understanding what "poor" truly means.
