
Ask HN: Best resources for non-technical founders to understand hacker mindset? - jamiecollinson
Background: technical founder wondering what reading to recommend to a business focused founder for them to grok the hacker mindset. I&#x27;ve thought perhaps Mythical Man Month and How To Become A Hacker (Eric Raymond essay) but not sure they&#x27;re quite right.<p>Any suggestions?<p>(In case it helps an analogue in the mathematical world might be A Mathematician&#x27;s Apology or Gödel, Escher, Bach.)
======
tensor
I have to admit, even I'm not sure what a "hacker mindset" is. As one
technical cofounder to another, I think the most important thing is for you to
understand the business side. Most importantly, how interpersonal skills
matter and how emotions play out in a business setting.

Beyond that, a solid understanding of scientific approaches to understanding
is the second most important. Being able to tease apart correlation and
causation, and being rigorous about what you accept as real knowledge vs mere
opinion or anecdote. The business world, and the tech world, has a lot of
"opinion" that masquerades as fact. E.g. "well I did X and I'm successful so
clearly X must work!"

~~~
_curious_
"well I did X and I'm successful so clearly X must work!"

If they did something...and that thing was successful then by definition that
thing they did...it works, right?

~~~
derefr
The broken thought-process there is mostly about when you take a shotgun
approach that involves many different things that could all individually pan
out (or not); or which could all be multipliers for one-another (or not.) If,
in the end, you succeed, you end up believing that _everything_ you tried was
a necessary part of your success. When, in actuality, you might have succeeded
_despite_ some of those approaches, rather than because of them. They might
have been actively harmful to your success, but just not harmful enough to
overcome the other successful things you tried.

In another instance, people who try one main thing (e.g. applying to a
particular college) but who succeed entirely through no effort of their own
(e.g. through nepotism), will end up thinking that what they did mattered.

~~~
_curious_
"The broken thought-process there is mostly about when you take a shotgun
approach that involves many different things..."

This sounds like quite the qualifier...which is fine, but I think it's
important to take your response/reasoning into a much more narrow
hypothetical.

~~~
derefr
I mean, we're talking about advice for running a startup here—an entrepreneur
would be an idiot to _not_ do everything possible to give themselves multiple
independent avenues to success (e.g. do multiple forms of inbound advertising;
attempt product-market fit with multiple markets; etc.)

------
tptacek
Maciej Ceglowski has a good bit in one of his idlewords posts about how the
"what makes hackers tick" genre is full of pieces that are really "how to be
someone just like the author". There's probably nobody that remark applies to
more than ESR, and ESR is probably not someone you'd want to work to resemble
more closely.

So, in reality, if you want to understand your technical cofounders, it is
probably not a good idea to take ESR seriously when he says that you should
find a "real" Unix (your technical cofounders are, actuarially speaking,
almost certainly macOS people), hand-write lots of HTML, or "serve" th "tribal
elders of open source". And the idea that "attitude is not a substitute for
competence" among hackers is both funny on a variety of levels, and also a
singularly bad note for understanding software developers you work with.

The Mythical Mammoth doesn't have any of these problems, and is a great book,
and one worth reading simply so you can have a sense of what building software
actually entails (Dynamics of Software Development is another older book that
has aged somewhat well --- as have all of Joel Spolsky's posts on Joel on
Software; in fact, I'd probably start there). But while this stuff will help
you understand the work that's happening on your team, it probably won't do
much to help you with the mindset of your team members.

There probably isn't a substitute for just talking to your cofounders, a lot,
and asking lots of questions.

~~~
pen2l
I had to wiki ESR, I'd needed to remind myself who he was.

And, tptacek, guess whose name I stumbled upon while I was reading his wiki
page? Incidentally, I think that section of the wiki is poorly written. I'm
left even more confused due to lack of context.

~~~
tptacek
I agree; obviously, I didn't write it. Feel free to delete it.

------
m463
A few tips:

Lots of hackers are introverts. They are wired differently from founders and
ceos (who have gravitated towards a life full of constant interactions with
people). Hackers don't mind being "in the zone" for hours at a time to work on
a problem. Sometimes this means coding, but sometimes this just means having
enough quiet time to just sit an think while they turn a problem over in their
mind. This is required.

Another side to the introvert thing -- I believe "open plan seating" is a
fundamental disconnect between extroverted decision-makers and introverted
knowledge workers. It is not surprising to me that productivity has
skyrocketed for problem-solvers working from home.

Another tip is to ask "what do you think?" then listen. Then wait even longer
and listen some more. The absolute best business people I've worked with were
masters of this. The worst would already have made decisions and questions
were just checkboxes.

(this works everywhere in life, but is particularly relevant to the really
smart people at the top of the tech tree)

also, hacker doesn't mean criminals who break into computers. Go with the
original meaning (well, the one after carriage driver)

reading:

[https://stallman.org/articles/on-
hacking.html](https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html)

~~~
gundmc
> It is not surprising to me that productivity has skyrocketed for problem-
> solvers working from home.

Do you have a source with data to back that up? The early indicators of the
efficacy of WFH that I've seen have been pretty mixed.

~~~
m463
Hmmm... I don't have proof, just anecdotal. And of course, everyone who likes
working from home will mention that their productivity is up (self-selection).

------
rognjen
One of the most important is the Managers vs Makers schedule:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

I'd also recommend Peopleware

------
peter_d_sherman
Let me sum up all possible books about understanding the "hacker" (terrible
word by the way, because of multiple meanings, which meaning are we talking
about?) mindset, to a management perspective:

1) True "hackers" value knowledge over money.

2) True "hackers" value doing things once and doing them right, no matter how
long that takes. (Compare to the business mindset of "we need it now", or "we
needed it yesterday")

3) True "hackers" value taking ownership in their work, that is, whatever they
work on becomes an extension of themselves, much like an artist working on a
work of art.

4) True "hackers" are not about work-arounds. If/when work-arounds are used,
it's because there there's an artificial timeframe (as might be found in the
corporate world), and there's a lack of understanding in the infrastructure
which created the need for that work-around.

But, all of these virtues run counter to the demands of business, which
constantly wants more things done faster, cheaper, with more features, more
complexity, less testing, and doesn't want to worry about problems that may be
caused by all of those things in the future (less accountability) -- as long
as customer revenue can be collected today.

You see, a true "hacker's" values -- are completely different than those of
big business...

And business people wonder why there's stress and burnout among tech people...

~~~
akerl_
I’m not a hacker if I’d rather hack together something quickly, even if it’s a
bit hacky? That would seem to violate your #2 rule for “true” “hackers”. Or if
I like hacking my way through a problem instead of doing it the expected way?
That would seem to violate #4.

And I’m not a “true” “hacker” if I want to make money?

I thought I was a hacker. But if this is what hackers are, I’m pretty ok with
being voted off the island.

~~~
sudosteph
You're still a hacker. The parent comment is conflating engineers (by which I
mean, like the kind of people who design bridges and critical infrastructure -
not just the title given to anyone who can code) with hackers. Think of it
this way. Almost all engineers are hackers, but the majority of hackers are
not engineers.

Tons of hackers don't give a flying fuck about the "right way" to do
something. Hackers are just the people who decide to apply their personal
agency and creative talents towards building, altering, breaking and fixing
things. There is no unifying motivation for doing so (though admittedly,
curiosity is more common than money as a motivator), nor any standardized way
of engaging in the process.

~~~
akerl_
I pretty wholeheartedly agree with your 2nd paragraph.

Regarding your first, I have similar concerns about this gatekeeping of
“engineers”. Civil engineers and the like have much more stringent regulations
and much more weight put onto correctness, but they aren’t required to prize
correctness-for-its-own-sake, or think of their work like art, or be doing the
work for its own sake rather than money.

I’m pretty confident that attempting to ascribe a unified motive to _any_
group is a mistake.

------
sudosteph
I don't think there is a hacker mindset. We don't all have the same
experiences or motivations for why we build, tinker, break, and fix. We just
all happen to do that stuff. Some of the most impressive "hackers" I've ever
met were old HAM radio enthusiasts with thick country accents who live in the
middle of nowhere. Those folks have almost nothing in common with the
extremely educated liberal developers in SF. But both groups collect knowledge
and apply it in the real world in creative ways.

So being a hacker is a practice, and in some cases it's a lifestyle (when you
orient your life around hacking). But it's not a mindset. Some folks are
compulsive hackers, some are methodical, some are opportunistic, others are
hackers out of necessity - but they're all united by what they do, not how
they think.

~~~
cat199
> But both groups collect knowledge and apply it in the real world in creative
> ways.

so maybe use your hacker mindset to deduce this is the mindset then?

~~~
sudosteph
Well there are patterns in behavior, but I don't think it's enough to qualify
as a singular mindset (with mindset defined as "the established set of
attitudes held by someone.") Plus, the piece you quoted could just as easily
be used to describe artists.

If I had to define hacker attitudes, I wouldn't use information collection and
application as the standard. Some people carefully select subjects study them
in depth, and others just passively pick up information through exposure to
experts, and others collect knowledge as a by-product of trying random stuff
and failing at it. Hackers (and non-hackers) don't necessarily need to prefer
one method to the other. And everyone, even non-hackers collect information -
so that's not in itself a special attitude of hackers. The application part is
more unique, but how is that different from what artists do?

If I _had_ to choose particular attitudes that would enable someone to
practice as a hacker, it would be:

\- high tolerance for failure and unexepected behaviors, or even joy in
failure under certain circumstances.

\- Gains pleasure from novelty (learning new things, having new experiences,
finding new applications of things). As a result, most hacker types place more
value on things that are obviously flawed, but novel and unique vs things
which are perfectly executed but familiar.

I think that second point differentiates hackers from at least some artists
(ie, Chefs usually prefer to stick to establish culinary pattersn, musicians
playing in a symphony find beauty in the same piece that has been played for
hundreds of years). Other experimental artists who do seek novelty (noise
music, etc) are basically hackers IMO.

Edit: but to my original point, if you have neither of the attitudes I
identified, but do hacker stuff anyhow - you're still a hacker. Those attitude
patterns don't take precedence over the actual reality of hacking. There just
common in people who continue to do it over their lifetime.

------
jonahbenton
I'm with the people asking "why."

There is almost no real reason for a business side founder to "grok" a hacker
mindset. If hackers/developers are the business' customer, then the business
owner just needs to find ones to talk to.

Forgive the directness but what I hear in the way the question above is framed
is that there is actually some communication misalignment between the tech
founder- who considers himself to have a "hacker mindset"\- and the business
founder, and the "hacker mindset" is a crutch the tech founder is using to
protect against some fear or concern being probed by the business founder.

If that is the case, the solution is to drop the defensiveness and just talk
about it, not point to some resource as though it is an authority that
business people have to worship offering tenets for them to adhere to. A new
business only has a chance to succeed if the founders succeed in building a
relationship that permits each other to fail and recover, and where they grok
each others' mindsets, not some caricature that Eric Raymond made up.

Happy to be completely wrong.

Cheers.

~~~
Myrmornis
I don't think I agree with this. I think what the poster is looking for is how
to help the more businessy founder understand the engineers that (s)he's
necessarily going to be hiring and working with. That strikes me as a
perfectly sensible and worthwhile goal and one that will probably help their
start up have a healthy culture in its early months/years.

~~~
jonahbenton
Yeah, could be, but if that were the problem, my guess is that the question
would be different. How do I help my business founder understand what to look
for and value when hiring, etc.

The issue is that OP question is an answer to the real question, which goes
unasked.

Cheers.

------
Pmop
The word "hacker" has been re-purposed so many times.

IMO hacker culture includes but is not limited to computer engineering and
science. It is about being so curious about a domain of knowledge that you end
up learning it in its little details, and as result, you can bend that domain
to your will. Hackers are often working on experimental stuff that have little
to no commercial value but are still valuable in their own way. You can read a
bit about computer hacker culture in the Jargon file.

Examples of (people I consider) hackers are (YouTube channels) Applied
Science, cnhlor, and styropyro.

~~~
duskwuff
> You can read a bit about computer hacker culture in the Jargon file.

The Jargon File is an artifact of "hacker culture" as it existed in the 1980s
and early 1990s. I would hesitate to recommend it nowadays -- it's rather
dated, and could lead an unaware reader to some false impressions.

------
emsign
The single most important thing that made me understand the hacker mindset as
a teenager was the Jargon File. And the publications and conference videos of
the Chaos Computer Club also had a great influence on me, as well as Clifford
Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg.

Read books by hackers, watch conference talks. And ofc get to know hackers, go
to hack spaces. Keep an open mind and be curious. That's a good starting point
to see how hacker culture really is. It's mostly about unorthodox curiosity
and having fun with machines and systems. Think of children playing with toys,
who grew up and never stopped playing with toys.

Don't waste your time on pop culture presentations of hackers, like movies or
reading articles about "great" hacks or hackers, it's misleading and not going
to transform your mind to think like a hacker in any way.

------
vertex-four
Most technical people you work with, even in early startups, will not be
"hackers" in any way, shape or form. Hacking doesn't usually equate to doing
things that tend to make businesses lots of money. Sometimes it does, but not
usually.

~~~
emsign
Yep, I think hacking became kind of a buzzword in the new economy. Facebook
deciding to name their corporate grounds to "1 Hacker Way" is such an example
of how tech companies have appropiated the term to mean something that doesn't
really have anything to do with the hacker mindest. They just think it's cool
and it attracts young talents. It's part of their brand marketing and hiring
strategy.

The only connection between Facebook and hacking I can think of is that their
software may have relied on "dirty hacks" and crutches in the past to make it
work.

Hacker culture by nature is very anti-corporate, anarchistic and against
subordinating everything under the dictatorship of profit maximization.

If the OP thinks "hacker mindest" equals being on a path to create the next
big app or service, you are being mislead big time.

~~~
sudosteph
> Hacker culture by nature is very anti-corporate, anarchistic and against
> subordinating everything under the dictatorship of profit maximization.

Yes! I came _this_ close to recommending "Steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman
for that exact reason. But I got the feeling that was not exactly the type of
hacker that OP was looking for...

------
hprotagonist
Worldview indoctrination is a fun game, I suppose. A mix of fiction and
biography is probably about right:

Fiction:

Douglas Copeland's "Microserfs"

Neal Stephenson, "Snow Crash" and perhaps especially "Cryptonomicon" (the
early randy chapters and anything about Eiphphyte in particular)

Real Genius (the film).

Nonfiction:

Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. All the elder gods
are here.

Cliff Stoll, The Cuckoo's Egg.

------
webel0
Maybe you could say a bit more about why you’re asking. In some cases others
would be right to suggest that you find material relevant to business for
yourself.

The one case that I can think of off the top of my head that might apply to
this situation is if there are disagreements re:product refinement/feature
set/bug prevalence. (Basically, “why doesn’t this work as seamlessly as X?”)
In that case you might do well to find the MVPs (and later iterations) of
famous startups.

------
tejtm
Wild guess here. Think of your problem/goal starting from the other end.

(crass generalization) non technical people tend to see the "idea" they have
isolated out of the sea of possibilities as the important thing.

Now that this important idea has been identified I just need someone to stuff
some "supports" under it and we are done!

top down

From the other direction, great ideas are a dime a dozen. Enormous amounts of
(outwardly invisible) time have been spent exploring the landscape these
"supports" would need to sit on the down to the bedrock. There may be things
that are just to obvious to consider explaining why that particular idea is
not worth the effort. Maybe it is boring or sub optimal or infeasible, or just
dumb.

A hacker (what ever that means anymore) would be more apt to consider what
they had on hand and where they were and most importantly, how they could
inject some cleverness into the building of their supports, then climb up and
see where they had gotten themselves.

bottom up

All obvious gross simplifications for illustration purposes.

If you are endeavouring to address a disconnect, first of all kudos to you for
making the effort.

Two paths that could help are

Better illustrator of "the idea". The everyday marketing of the idea to the
masses is not going to help here. You would need to demonstrate the value
added that would make what ever reluctance there is be set aside.

The other is experience what is causing the reluctance; get some blisters
yourself.

------
king_magic
A lot of us technical folks think the "hacker mindset" is an unfortunate,
childlike simplification of what we do. I personally prefer solid engineering
to "hacking".

I strongly encourage you to make your non-technical folks aware of good
engineering practices, instead of this "everyone needs to learn to code and
have special snowflake hacker skills" mindset that has so permeated the
industry.

~~~
imesh
I'm a "hacker" in my free time, doing projects to tinker, have fun and learn.
At my job I am not a hacker. I am an engineer. I engineer solutions to
corporate problems. It's not that interesting.

------
schkkd
True spherical hackers in the vacuum want to be undisputable experts in
complex topics and as this often mixes with sheer egoism, they like to flex
with this knowledge and remind others how unsophisticated others are. But
ideal spherical hackers are rare. Moreover, smart people like to learn new
stuff not only about the tech side of things, so if they sniff you're trying
to manipulate them, they'll pay you back with the same coin and you'll get a
team of cynical snarky devs. If you want to become a leader for them, you'll
have to earn their respect (again, a lazy attempt to earn it by slipping how
you know some python will dump your rating that very moment, as that would be
seen as a cheap manipulation). A leader for them can be a super knowledgeable
jerk (e.g. Linus) or a super humble guy who sends the message "you know more
than me, so I'll step out of your way". In other words, if you really want to
step on their ego by telling them what to do, you'd better be an undisputable
expert, or expect a delayed counter reaction.

~~~
wool_gather
The turn of phrase "true spherical hackers in the vacuum" is quite clever and
entertaining, but I submit that it is unlikely to be grokked by someone who
does not already have familiarity with hacker-isms/culture. :)

(And of course they likely wouldn't understand "grok" either").

~~~
schkkd
Tbh, even I don't understand "grok" :)

------
throwaway55554
>... recommend to a business focused founder for them to grok the hacker
mindset.

From 1000 ft, what's different between the two? It's all about solving
problems.

The business focused founder sees a problem, a business/market opportunity.
He/She needs to figure out how to solve it, how to come up with a way to
satisfy that market. If a product exists, how do they get that product into
the hands of the customer. If the product doesn't exist, how to get it into
existence and then get it into the hands of the customer.

The hacker/developer/whatever sees a problem and He/She tries to develop a
product that satisfies that problem based on the requirements they're either
given or suss out themselves. The hacker mindset is an insatiable need for
knowledge. How to do a thing. How to make a thing. How did others make a
thing. Don't business people think that way, also? Probably one big difference
might be that the hacker mindset shares knowledge. Business people are more
protective of it. (Generally)

~~~
intrepidhero
I would add that most folks who go into business are motivated primarily by
seeing the dollars appear, while most "hackers" I know are primarily motivated
by the rush they get when they've understood the new problem/solution.

That's painting with broad strokes obviously and a person can be motivated by
both. But that's the axis I would draw the distinction on.

------
factorialboy
It's not that hard. Try to build / construct something. You will soon discover
a layer of detail that you never anticipated. And then some more.

Hackers / programmers are trained to be cognizant of these details and
complexities that aren't obvious on first glance.

Heck sometimes this weighs us down. I'd rather have someone ignorant and brave
on my team. :)

------
adamsea
The book "Coders At Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming".

It is not a technical book.

It'll be as good as anything : ).

"Peter Seibel interviews 15 of the most interesting computer programmers alive
today in Coders at Work, offering a companion volume to Apress’s highly
acclaimed best-seller Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston. As the words “at
work” suggest, Peter Seibel focuses on how his interviewees tackle the day-to-
day work of programming, while revealing much more, like how they became great
programmers, how they recognize programming talent in others, and what kinds
of problems they find most interesting.

Hundreds of people have suggested names of programmers to interview on the
Coders at Work web site: www.codersatwork.com. The complete list was 284
names. Having digested everyone’s feedback, we selected 15 folks who’ve been
kind enough to agree to be interviewed:

Frances Allen: Pioneer in optimizing compilers, first woman to win the Turing
Award (2006) and first female IBM fellow Joe Armstrong: Inventor of Erlang
Joshua Bloch: Author of the Java collections framework, now at Google Bernie
Cosell: One of the main software guys behind the original ARPANET IMPs and a
master debugger Douglas Crockford: JSON founder, JavaScript architect at
Yahoo! L. Peter Deutsch: Author of Ghostscript, implementer of Smalltalk-80 at
Xerox PARC and Lisp 1.5 on PDP-1 Brendan Eich: Inventor of JavaScript, CTO of
the Mozilla Corporation Brad Fitzpatrick: Writer of LiveJournal, OpenID,
memcached, and Perlbal Dan Ingalls: Smalltalk implementor and designer Simon
Peyton Jones: Coinventor of Haskell and lead designer of Glasgow Haskell
Compiler Donald Knuth: Author of The Art of Computer Programming and creator
of TeX Peter Norvig: Director of Research at Google and author of the standard
text on AI Guy Steele: Coinventor of Scheme and part of the Common Lisp Gang
of Five, currently working on Fortress Ken Thompson: Inventor of UNIX Jamie
Zawinski: Author of XEmacs and early Netscape/Mozilla hacker"

------
ilaksh
Since it's actually about you and for that one guy, you should just tell him
what it is that is set in your mind.

The thing about it though, is that mindsets are not readily transferable. They
are basically worldviews which are formed slowly and because of their
foundational place in cognition are remarkably resistant to change.

One challenge is technical debt. To start to understand it, find a tool that
he uses regularly (assuming such a thing exists). Maybe it is Excel. Now have
him solve some kind of problem with it. And then schedule a meeting with his
friend the following week to review his spreadsheet. Then add requirements
that his spreadsheet must handle. Tell him he must hurry so that those
requirements are complete before his meeting. Ensure that there are too many
requirements for the spreadsheet or that there isn't time to properly
reorganize it.

In the meeting, explain to his friend that he has been the mastermind of this
spreadsheet design. Have him first demo the calculation features of the
spreadsheet. The have him walk through the design, show the formulas in the
cells, explain his naming scheme.

The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate why engineers seem to be so
concerned about their code organization and technical debt. Which is that they
have their name on any mess they make in the code, and they have to maintain
it as it changes. Without ever having done that part of it, it is difficult
for a business person to really understand the developer's point of view.

------
DoreenMichele
I think you need to make it clear that you are a maker and your limitations
are more in the realm of physics -- what can work and what won't work.

Business people tend to be more social-oriented, people-oriented. And one of
the pitfalls of that is that most such people think if you just make the right
friends, find the right words, push the right emotional buttons, you can make
magic.

And sometimes that's true. But sometimes what they want is a case of
"Something cannot be both heavy and light at the same time. I can be light and
large -- like a cloud -- but it can't be both heavy and light. Pick one."

I do a lot of studying of social things and I hate people who are
manipulative. A lot of people with serious social skills are manipulative.

In short, many of them lie when it's convenient because they don't want to
deal with negative emotions or whatever.

So I would have them watch the Jim Carrey movie "Liar, Liar." and challenge
them to use their social skills to tell the actual truth in a more acceptable
manner instead of fudging.

I would also recommend negotiating books. Hard skills when it comes to dealing
with people helps make it possible to be both honest and diplomatic.

 _The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator_ is research based and very meaty.

 _Getting to Yes_ is also research based, but a quick, easy read.

------
qntty
"The Jargon File" might be a good place to start. From there, maybe read one
of _The Cathedral and the Bazaar_ , _The Soul of a New Machine_ , or _Hackers:
Heroes of the Computer Revolution_.

I read _Fire in the Valley_ when I was young and it impacted me, although
there might be a better book that's similar. I might also recommend something
by Jaron Lanier or Stallman if you don't might being a little political.

------
zachrose
I've been collecting things in an Arena channel, "Use, Misuse, Rugged
Consumerism, etc." that might be helpful in seeing one aspect of what such a
mindset might be.

[https://www.are.na/zach-rose/use-misuse-rugged-
consumerism-e...](https://www.are.na/zach-rose/use-misuse-rugged-consumerism-
etc)

------
Zaheer
A 'Hacker' is just a technically literate 'Hustler'. There are likely more
books or resources for developing a hustler mindset you can find. It's a more
generic mode of thinking and can apply beyond just technical.

------
nobodywillobsrv
Founders need to be technical about something. The idea of a "non-technical"
founder is nonsense. I have seen it and they were basically a VC with
expensive friends just creating a job for social reason to get them out of the
house.

Technical _need not_ mean "code". It could be a medical expert working with a
wide array of people to build something. Or a tax-expert. Or an employment
expert etc.

Founder is what "product manager" should be. Instead it seems "product
manager" is just some glue person at a large organization who is usually not
great at accessing optionality and time and money costs.

------
Myrmornis
The answer's simple. You're looking right at it!

Don't give them Mythical Man Month or Eric Raymond or any of that stuff: dated
and esoteric. My interpretation of your post is basically that the business
founder is going to be (involved in) hiring, and will be working with several
software engineers soon. And you want to help them understand what makes the
engineers tick: the sorts of things they find interesting, the sorts of ways
they talk about it.

So that's easy. Tell them to look at HN, pick an article with a technical
theme that's getting a lot of attention. Read the article, and then read the
comment threads.

------
rboyd
[https://try.newrelic.com/rs/newrelic/images/The_New_Kingmake...](https://try.newrelic.com/rs/newrelic/images/The_New_Kingmakers.pdf)

------
munchbunny
What are you hoping for the business focused founder to get out of this
exercise?

The reason I ask is that in my experience the "hacker mindset" is a very
nebulous thing. There's sort of a "hacker ideal", but in practice actual
developers, white/blackhats, makers, etc. come from all sorts of backgrounds,
have all sorts of ways of thinking about problems, and are motivated by all
sorts of different things.

Are you hoping for the business founder to better understand how to
effectively work with technical people?

------
Cactus2018
Harvard's CS50 Intro to Computer Science. Available on various platforms like
edX and YouTube.

[https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-to-computer-
sc...](https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-to-computer-science)

Direct link to "Computational Thinking - CS50's Computer Science for Business
Professionals 2017" \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2f9h_-
_Fv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2f9h_-_Fv4)

------
andrelgomes
Paul Graham's Makers vs Managers -
[http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

~~~
sloaken
Wow that was very enlightening. I had been wondering why meetings used to bug
me, and now I have no issue. Oh did I mention I am a manager now, I scheduled
this in an appropriate time slot. I cannot wait to get back to hating
meetings.

------
vogelke
[https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0932633420/](https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0932633420/)

The Psychology of Computer Programming

by Gerald M. Weinberg

Written in 1971, and still completely relevant. Topics include egoless
programming, intelligence, psychological measurement, personality factors,
motivation, training, social problems on large projects, problem-solving
ability, programming language design, team formation, the programming
environment, etc.

------
joejerryronnie
I don’t have any suggested reading material but my rule of thumb is to just
assume that anything which appears simple to build is about 10x more complex
for “reasons”. The simpler a feature is to use, the longer it will take to
develop. And any major change in scope/priority adds 2x to the original
timeline.

If you want to understand the details behind these general statements, you’ll
need to spend the next several years in the trenches delivering dozens of
technical projects.

------
jacknews
I think many here (and maybe you too) would find the opposite valuable.

How to understand the business/sales/marketing/leadership/political mindset.
Without cynicism.

------
aSplash0fDerp
I don`t watch these videos for entertainment, but this person has gained a
little notoriety for this gig he started after his grandmother with dementia
was scammed.

[https://kitboga.com/](https://kitboga.com/)

I was left agasp by some of the language (some is NSFW) and techniques ised by
the scammers, but you would be the grandmother with dementia (non-technical
user) vs someone who will say/do anything for money.

------
someproduct
I've found the book "New Kingmakers: How Developers Conquered the World"
really instructive on this point.

It focuses on the "rise of the developer," if you will, as an influential
decision-making and budget-holding role within a company. It also includes
lots of perspective on appealing to developers and avoiding marketing and
business jargon.

As a nontechnical founder myself, it's been really helpful.

------
mhh__
Watch DEFCON and Hackaday talks? Not so much a mindset but insights into how
people think and what people find interesting (to have been selected).

------
gameman144
"Masters of Doom" is a pretty demonstrative and entertaining bit of non-
fiction that walks through the early days of id Software. Though not a manual
or how-to, or anything like that, I'd recommend it to a non-technical founder
or manager because it does a great job evoking the thrill of
creation/breakthrough that is pretty central to the "hacker mindset".

------
enz
Maybe "Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas From The Computer Age" by Graham. As a
bonus, some of the chapters are business-oriented.

------
mathgenius
"Coders: who they are, what they think and how they are changing our world" by
Clive Thompson, 2019. I think this is exactly what you are looking for.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44037236-coders](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44037236-coders)

------
gilesvangruisen
I really enjoyed this interview with Larry Wall (of Perl fame), and I come
back to it from time to time. He does a great job illustrating the hacker
mindset that you mentioned
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNAtbYSxzuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNAtbYSxzuA)

------
MrQuincle
For me the mindset means a lot of different things.

1\. Go beyond what people tell you. Discover your own truth.

2\. The love for tinkering.

3\. The idea that what you bought is your own and you can do anything with it.

4\. To use something in a way that is completely not how it is intended.

5\. Deep reverse engineering dives.

6\. The guilty pleasure of picking digital locks.

I think I've books in all those directions.

------
jandrusk
I would recommend Steve Levy's: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution:
25th Anniversary Edition.

------
billme
Hacker mindset to me is the predictable ability to swap between divergent and
convergent thinking at will to discover optimal paths to desired outcomes
regardless of means, context, biases, etc. — frequently just for the fun of
it, to learn more, to be intentionally different, etc.

------
d0m
Might be interesting to do a few hours of pair programming too; i.e. implement
and ship a small feature

------
LiamPa
Ghosts in the Wire, Kevin Mitnick

Made me realise that many just do it because they like the challenge.

------
mch82
Steve Wozniak’s biography, “iWoz”. He perfectly explains how to combine off
the shelf parts in novel ways so that 100% of R&D is focused on closing gaps
unique to the business problem at hand.

------
Pandabob
Perhaps "The Innovators" by Walter Isaacson. If nothing else, it introduces
the reader to many of the pivotal people in the history of computing.

------
redcat7
I see how everything works. Humans, businesses, societies, machines, myself -
everything. And I use that to have fun.

------
pedalpete
Paul Graham's Hackers & Painters?

------
kevinali3
Halt and Catch Fire seasons 1 and 2.

------
dominotw
ER is blacklisted in tech community. Finishing GEB is no easy task.

I recommend hackers and painters by pg.

~~~
dynamite-ready
The book written by the guy who runs this site.

Skims on the painting part, I thought, but it makes for an interesting insight
into the personal philosophy of someone who values both creativity and logic.

Many of his ideas are universal (probably why I'm here!). Others don't port so
well (or are specific to his experience).

Well worth the OPs time, given the question.

Joel on Software is also a fantastic read. More concrete in talking about
specific aspects of a software developers' working experience, and ideas
towards technology in general.

A mentor of mine suggested I should read it alongside Hackers and Painters.

I can't thank him and his friends enough, frankly...

------
rb808
I liked Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston, but it isnt clear what you
mean.

------
werber
Eloquent JavaScript, even if you only go through the first few chapters

------
syngrog66
read Hackers by Steven Levy. one of the best histories of 70s and 80s era of
computing. gave great feel for how programmers think

------
itronitron
Elements of Programming Interviews (jk)

------
krapp
The Hacker Manifesto

The Anarchist's Cookbook

Industrial Society and Its Future (the Unabomber Manifesto)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

------
some_furry
> I've thought perhaps Mythical Man Month and How To Become A Hacker (Eric
> Raymond essay) but not sure they're quite right.

Please don't recommend Eric Raymond's work to people.

> technical founder wondering what reading to recommend to a business focused
> founder for them to grok the hacker mindset

What does "the hacker mindset" mean to you?

If you ask me: The most important thing about a hacker mindset is that it must
exist outside of technology. A hacker mindset is not a "techy" mindset, it's
something far more sublime, and is portable across different fields.

Hacking is about creativity and problem solving, but not in a formalized way.
That doesn't always involve computers and related technology. Hacking should
be _fun_ , regardless of what industry or specialization it manifests in
(which doesn't always translate well in business settings).

That isn't something that you're going to inject into someone by recommending
them read a book. They have to seek it out for themselves. Without curiosity,
hackers do not exist.

If they're going to be able to understand the mindset without having
experienced it themselves, you might as well just share my comment here with
them. If it sinks in, great! If not, I don't believe a few hundred pages of
prose will have a different outcome.

~~~
lwhalen
What's wrong with ESR's work? I know the man himself can sometimes be
controversial, but many of us came up on his works like The Jargon File,
Cathedral and Bazaar, etc.

~~~
duskwuff
The Jargon File is almost entirely the work of others, in particular Guy
Steele. ESR's contributions to it were largely self-serving, e.g. the addition
of terms like "anti-idiotarianism" which had little usage outside right-wing
political circles (including ESR himself, of course), and he hasn't updated it
at all since the early 2000s.

