
Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924) - JabavuAdams
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_I_Never_Hire_Brilliant_Men
======
thebokehwokeh2
Working at a startup helmed by a "brilliant" man as mentioned in the article,
I wholeheartedly agree. So much hand waving. So little execution. One month,
we were doing one thing that "had to be in the app". Another month, something
else. Neither would get the actual attention that needed for them to be
implemented properly, and nothing of value was produced.

Society places too much importance on the buds of ideas. True, an idea can
change the world. But what gets lost in the shuffle is the fact that what
truly matters is in those ideas being executed and turned into something
tangible.

The charismatic idea men are a dime a dozen. I'm sure everyone here has worked
with some hand-waving, smooth talking salesman who wows investors, then fail
hard at meeting promises. It's those who can execute that are truly
transformative.

~~~
edraferi
This is exactly what I took away from the article.

Execution matters.

~~~
bennyg
So does the idea.

It's almost like they both have to be in tandem or something.

~~~
thebokehwokeh2
The any idea will only matter if it is executed upon well.

------
nnq
It's sad how this sounds so plausible and valid... because even today, we are
_incredibly bad_ at managing (or making use of or integrating into a team...)
brilliant people and we fail to make use of them and _we let them fail_
because we can only figure out how to make reliable profit by using readily
available mediocrity.

We should instead learn to recognize human diversity and accept that besides
the "well rounded hard worker" that needs to make up at least 50% of any team,
we also need to find ways of making use and helping thrive:

\- the always starters: the guys that always start new things and have new
ideas (that actually work!) but maybe never finish anything -- maybe we should
stop pressing them to finish, just rotate them from one department to another
and then let the rest work to bring his works to completion

\- the motivation dynamites: the people whose minds go up in fire and also set
fire to the minds of people around them -- maybe we should use them by
rotating them to projects that lack motivation, or use them to launch viral
social media campaigns or something

\- the distracted geniuses: the thing with the "distracted genius" is that if
you teach him how to "focus", he become way more productive but stops being a
genius, and you then have another a-little-above-average-chap -- maybe we
should use the "ideas volcanos" as a competitive advantage and stop telling
them to focus, like encourage them to publish their ideas that cannot be
implemented online on a company blog - yeah, the competition will steal some
of them, but your company will become uber-attractive and everyone will want
to work for "a company from which so many uber-cool ideas come from"

...and then there's the generalization that most of these types of brilliant
people are essentially _not team players_ \-- they shouldn't be forced to work
as part of one team or stick to a team: maybe a corporate environment may just
perpetually rotate them from one team/project to another, not even bothering
to let them finish what they are doing; maybe a startup should stop trying to
get them on-board and just keep them as well paid consultants (and allow them
to consult for even a dozen other companies at the same time to keep their
minds busy).

...and maybe all the ideas above are wrong, but the point is that _we are
incredibly bad at making use of brilliant people in business context and
focusing on "just use hard working average joes" instead is an avoidance of
the problem, not a solution!_

~~~
jib
A lot of people want to be "the idea guy", because it's cool and relatively
easy. The problem is that ideas are cheap.

The value of any given idea is really low - I would argue that for many
organisations ideas even have a negative value on average, because you are
going to spend a lot of time dealing with the idea without it actually
becoming something that generate value in the end.

Even if you have an idea, that works, and that will generate significant value
if realised, until that idea IS realised, it is a negative cost.

People who can generate a large amount of those ideas are a commodity.

People who can cheaply identify an idea that can be realised and that have
access to resources to realise it, and that can go through the process of
actually realising the idea are not a commodity.

The bottle neck for putting new ideas to market is not the idea generation,
and so the people who consider themselves "always starters" is not a scarce
resource, hence I dont need to rotate them from department to department -
every department I have already have access to more than enough good ideas, so
adding the "always starter" to that department would be a negative cost.

~~~
dhimes
_The value of any given idea is really low_

I would agree if you mean _average_ idea. Really great ideas are rare,
difficult, and can change the world. The people who come up with those are
rather special.

And, unfortunately, rare, and almost never (in my somewhat limited experience)
think of themselves as 'idea guys.'

But this hivemind (nicely crurated by VCs- think that through) that ideas are
worthless is very wrong. Unfortunately, discussions about it tend to start
conflating ideas and execution- as, indeed, it is hard to separate them when
you get down to it.

~~~
mattlutze
Really great ideas also have low value. Even the most brilliant idea will have
been had by countless people before it is known to the world.

The truly rare, difficult and world-changing is the realization (production,
enactment, what have you) of a really great idea, and the luck of that
realization occurring in the right context.

~~~
pcrh
>Even the most brilliant idea will have been had by countless people

It wasn't very brilliant then, was it?

~~~
valarauca1
Most ideas aren't that brilliant. If it occurred to you, it likely occurred to
somebody else. Ideas are a product of your environment. While we pretend to be
unique a lot of what we do is pretty common to dozens, if not hundreds, or
thousands of people.

Even ideas as earth shaking and complex as Infinitesimal Calculus and Quantum
Mechanics were developed in parallel initial by people with little to no
communication between each other.

~~~
pcrh
That's the point, isn't it? _Truly_ good ideas are rare.

~~~
a-priori
We're treading dangerously close to "no true Scotsman" territory here.

~~~
leoc
Only in that _some_ intrinsically good ideas are fairly obvious. Others are
not.

------
badman_ting
Alternately, this is the story of a man who hired based on word of mouth, then
when that didn't work out, learned the wrong lesson.

~~~
solve
Indeed, he's definitely talking about SALES people, who use their sales
tactics to sell him on themselves. Definitely not talking about "book smarts"
brilliance. The author probably intentionally mistitled the story for
attention.

That said, there's a good lesson - if you hire sales people, their most
attractive target will always be selling themselves to the guy who's writing
their paycheck. It will not automatically be the actual customers or whatever
you think their incentives are "supposed" to be.

~~~
badman_ting
The weird thing is, why didn't he hire this person in a way that posed less
risk to his business? Why is he handing over a gigantic check worth 140,000 of
today's dollars? Isn't this person crazy, or at least a terrible businessman?
Yet here we all are, listening to his advice. The longer I think about this
the more I dislike it.

~~~
pdonis
Um, he's using this whole episode as an example of what _not_ to do, not what
_to_ do. He says right out that hiring that person that way was a mistake. The
whole point of the article is to help people avoid the mistakes the author
made. How many articles that get to HN's front page are basically the same
thing?

~~~
badman_ting
Right, but I'm saying it's the wrong counterexample.

This is "I got fucked up and crashed my Ford into a tree, so I'm never buying
a Ford again."

~~~
byerley
I mean,

If I repeatedly get fucked up and crash Fords over the course of my life while
having much better luck with other cars, I might start looking for a causal
relationship.

~~~
pdonis
Exactly: that's what the author of the piece is doing. He's had bad luck with
a certain type of person while having much better luck with other types of
people, and he's analyzing the reasons for that.

~~~
midas007
Sounds like a rationalization for a gap in management capabilities. Much
easier to find fault in tall people or people that talk fast.

An insightful business owner will review their own psychology first and ask
others for their impression in a way that doesn't reveal their bias.

------
tokenadult
As mathattack has correctly pointed out in a comment an hour ago, this is a
parable (a made-up story). The huge salary by that day's standards should make
that clear. But the unnamed author makes his hiring methods look stupid,
because he should be doing a work-sample test[1] before hiring for such an
expensive contract. If he doesn't know what the worker will actually do, he
shouldn't put so much money on the line.

[1] My FAQ on company hiring procedures as posted earlier on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923)

I'm now doing research to update that FAQ for posting on my personal website,
a suggestion other HN readers kindly gave me.

~~~
001sky
When was the last time a CEO was (ever) given a work sample test?

Serious Question.

~~~
greesil
Does his or her previous company count as a work sample test?

~~~
pekk
Does previous work experience count as a work sample test for a programmer?
That's not what work sample test means.

------
TrainedMonkey
It appears that men labeled as genius were simply men of high charisma capable
of convincing and inspiring others.

~~~
cbp
And since those qualities are so out of reach for techies they're looked down
on.

~~~
woodchuck64
I think everyone should be highly suspicious of charisma. Charisma is a skill,
not a trait, and it's developed by spending a lifetime practicing on people
that one thinks are largely beneath one's self.

~~~
efuquen
That's a pretty cynical point of view. I've met plenty of charismatic people
who wouldn't think they're spending "a lifetime practicing on people that one
thinks are largely beneath one's self". And then I've meant charismatic people
who are full of themselves as well. Charisma and egotism don't go hand in hand
...

~~~
woodchuck64
Don't confuse charisma with extroversion. Being an open, warm, inviting person
is not the defining characteristic of those who others readily identify as
"charismatic" rather than a "really nice guy". Charisma is first and foremost
about impressing others with your charm, intelligence, wit, etc. The skilled
ones hide their contempt and egotism well.

------
loladesoto
tl;dr: look for integrity.

some of the most brilliant hackers i know are rightfully afraid of going into
business with the kind of "brilliant men" described in this article.

just as non-technical founders benefit from learning to code for a myriad of
reasons, hackers should do careful due diligence on a potential business
partner. ask questions. require them to invest in the relationship. blow away
the smoke and mirrors if you see their evidence, until you see that person in
a humble light.

most of the time, this kind of salesperson is masking deep personality flaws
which you can actually live with in exchange for the benefits, on one
condition: the existence of abiding integrity.

so many of these relationships are predatory but they don't have to be if you
find ways to get them to show you their character. see how they treat their
friends. travel with them. build something together.

something a friend taught me is "H.A.L.T." = hungry, angry, lonely, tired. 1)
don't make decisions when you're in any of these states; 2) it applies to
choosing a business partner but here, you WANT to see them this way. you can
learn a lot about a person when their basic needs are momentarily threatened,
including how they treat you and others. so don't be dazzled, find them in a
humble light because that's where a person's character is revealed.

the ones you want are comfortable with their humility.

~~~
aaren
I like the acronym!

I think HALT is also useful for introspection. Sometimes you are forced to
function and make decisions in this state and you can learn a lot about
yourself when this happens.

You can do this through work but it is probably better outside of that,
through some sort of pastime that you can make difficult. Mountains, climbing
and cycling are what I think of but there are many ways to induce HALT.

Intentionally push yourself out of your comfort zone every now and then and
you learn a lot about your personal limits and your character. _If you can 't
get on with yourself in a HALT state then how is anyone else going to?_

Stress the organism and it grows.

~~~
loladesoto
right. the best long-term relationships have gone through stages of HALT,
which is nothing more than exposing one's vulnerability.

that's where a person's character resides. and people who manage to be honest,
and generous and courageous in those moments, are the ones to surround
yourself with. experience character-building through HALT, in spite of it, and
you're on your way to being a better man or woman, i suspect.

------
Kluny
I love the fact that the author makes his points without ever putting down the
men he talks about or sounding cynical. That make me take him more seriously
than I otherwise would.

------
brownbat
"The continual use of slang expressions is an evidence of mental laziness, and
I will not hire a man who depends upon slang to express his meaning. It is a
substitute for exact thinking."

I found this to be an unusual warning. Is "proper speech" really just a proxy
for class in that time period? I'm now very curious about 1920s slang,
especially its frequency of use in business settings.

~~~
Kluny
Compare the comments on this site with the ones you see on reddit, where a
sarcastic one-liner or a good meme reference can get thousands of upvotes.
From my experience of actually writing comments on reddit that have gotten
thousands of points - the less thought you put into them the better they'll
do. The same is not true on HN where long and well thought out comments do
better, and one-liners often get moderated. In my opinion, HN comments are
much more valuable as a whole because of that.

~~~
interstitial
I must be in the lower echelons of this secret HN club, because I cannot see
the score on any comment. I thought it was the general and public absences of
meaningless internet points that kept the comment system of HN in check.

~~~
lmm
You can't see the score on other people's comments, but if you click your
username at the top you can see the scores for your own.

------
ilaksh
Good writing and ok advice for someone who wants to run a grocery business.
But it is absolutely untrue that "brilliant" men cannot also be careful,
detail-oriented and have good business sense and skills. And certainly
innovation and risk taking can be just as critical in business as following
proven formulas and paying close attention to the bottom line. It depends on
the business and circumstance. Overall I think in the context of high
technology, the article is dated.

~~~
michaelochurch
His use of "brilliant" has little to do with IQ. It's a conflation of (a)
creativity (which correlates, as he observes, with manic-depressive patterns
and unreasonable expectations of others) and (b) superficial charisma (which
correlates with narcissism and substance abuse). Those are two types of
"flashiness" that he makes the mistake of conflating.

I'm category (a): creative, prone to mood swings, basically reliable but bad
at the _superficial_ reliability contests that determine advancement in most
organizations. Yes, someone like me _can_ be detail-oriented and show business
acumen. We can be reliable. We're just not as competitive at being reliable
(especially in the superficial ways, which are important in customer service)
as others. If you need +3 sigma reliability-- someone who can work 100-hour
weeks and not miss details or break rules or even become annoying-- you don't
want +3 sigma creativity.

~~~
maxerickson
Does "+3 sigma creativity" actually mean anything?

(I'm aware enough of the rough technical definition, I mean in the sense that
if you think there are 500,000 super special people in the U.S. can you do
anything useful to find them?)

~~~
michaelochurch
I was just using it ("+3 sigma") to mean "high-level" creativity and could
have just as easily said "99.9th percentile" or some other number. No, I don't
know of a good way to test for it.

My point is that there's a strong negative correlation, especially at the
competitive upper reaches, between creativity and the sort os superficial
reliability that (a) tends to determine a person's ability to advance in
organizations, and (b) you'd probably want in someone you put in front of
difficult clients on a regular basis.

~~~
maxerickson
Is this correlation just something you believe based on personal experience,
or do you have some more substantial basis?

------
bpyne
"Brilliant" is so broad. Some people are brilliant in a particular subject;
some are brilliant in the breadth of their knowledge; some of brilliant
socially; some are brilliant analytically; etc.

I like the author's anecdotes and agree with some conclusions because I've run
into people with the same personality traits. (We all probably have.) But
Newton was both brilliant and stubborn as was Einstein. They didn't understand
something in the physical world so they continued thinking about it until they
were satisfied.

Human organizations need a balance of brilliance and plodders. I'd say they
need many fewer brilliant people because it takes a large number of plodders
to bring their ideas to fulfillment. But the brilliant people are looking to
the future while the plodders are dealing with today.

------
d23
What if you aren't a finisher? How can you become one?

~~~
spinlock
Start finishing things. It sounds trite but it's true. Some of the best advice
I've ever been given is: the way you do anything is the way you do everything.
So, finish the smallest tasks consistently and that will carry over to the
bigger tasks.

~~~
busterarm
I really need to work at this. I definitely have always fit the "genius but
doesn't finish things" description. I've been working at this hard for 8 years
because it really has negatively affected my life. I'm making some progress
but it's really slow and if I slack off even a little I tend to lose
everything.

It's hard.

~~~
chris_mahan
The old expression "don't bite more than you can chew" epitomizes this. Don't
start what you can't finish. It's in deciding what to start and what not to
start that you'll make progress.

Read "The Effective Executive" by Peter Drucker, which addresses this in
greater detail.

~~~
busterarm
Thanks. I really need to either clear more stuff off my plate or sort out my
work situation where I don't have post-workday burnout. Between my job, family
commitments and working on my vehicle, I have trouble finding time to start
anything now. I get a tremendous amount done when I'm not working.

I either have to settle with how things are now or change the work situation I
think. I'll look into that book anyway.

------
nicholas73
A corollary to this principle is to respect risk. If you never take on
volatility that can ruin you, you will grow slow but steadily.

Conversely, if you accept excessive volatility by taking big bets, you can end
up broke even if your expected value was positive.

Rule #1 according to Buffett: Never lose money. Rule #2: Don't forget Rule #1.

I learned this the hard way. Maybe I was brilliant.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
Man, if only algorithms were that easy.

>Rule #1: O(1). Rule #2: You don't need anything else

Or maybe Buffet just meant don't misplace your money, as in losing a $20 out
of your wallet and finding it in your dryer after the laundry.

------
3minus1
For anyone struck by the modern relevancy of this piece I suggest you check
out Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. It's also from the 1920s and the American
culture that it describes (and critiques) is very similar to today.

------
tsunamifury
If you want to run a solid, reliable, mediocre business hire solid, reliable,
mediocre workers.

~~~
guard-of-terra
This works well running a grocery chain, but not so well designing the new
iPhone.

You'll end up with Windows Mobile.

~~~
tsunamifury
True but only one company makes the new iPhone, many companies design
enterprise software that need a simple workflow and a solid working database
with reliable uptime.

~~~
guard-of-terra
And we know nothign about those companies because they're not on HN.

We suspect that they probably have restrictive workplace policies, helpdesk in
India and office politics. Those things OP won't like.

------
Tloewald
If you include Sir Isaac Newton in a case against employing geniuses, your
case is pretty thin.

~~~
pdonis
Why? From all I have read about Newton, he would have been the employee from
hell. A genius as a mathematician and physicist, yes; but a terrible employee.

~~~
arethuza
He became Warden of the Royal Mint and became rather passionate about his new
role - even to the extent of working as an undercover agent and personally
leading the prosecution of "coiners" in court.

[NB For a fictionalized, but hugely entertaining, account of the relevant time
in history I can recommend Neal Stephenson's wonderful "Baroque Cycle" \-
Newton is a major character.]

~~~
saalweachter
For a non-fiction account, "Newton and the Counterfeiter", by Tom Levenson.

------
baldfat
I come from a HIGH IQ family. My father's IQ is unmeasurable but guesses are
between 190-210 my move is over 165 and 3 of my sisters are in MENSA. I
graduated Valedictorian in High School and College. I have been the "Jack of
All Trades" and can study something and be proficient with it. Did some
locally well known good deeds. From my 30+ years of work force experience I
have decided that I wish I had an average IQ and that I got a B+ average.

My Conclusion: Perceived Intelligence is a curse. I try to hide my academic
accomplishments and cringe when someone says I have some above average brain.
Can't tell you how many times I hear, "The best _____ isn't necessarily the
straight A student." "We don't higher straight A students."

People with a higher capacity intellectually can take in more information and
see more moves ahead. That way there is a different perception on solution and
it causes frustration for everyone.

~~~
pertinhower
I think you're right. There are two forces at work: innate ability and social
acceptability. Innate ability tends to harm social acceptability. Therefore,
to the extent that social acceptability determines a person's overall ability
to succeed, high innate ability can actually pose a greater net detriment to
success than a lower innate ability does. In a word, being "smart" or even
"skillful" may in some cases make you less successful. The optimum, as you
point out, is to have high innate ability but to disguise it in order to
reduce the social downside. The trouble with this is that it's harder to
disguise than it might seem: people tend to "sense" the intelligence of other
people. You don't laugh at the right times. You tell jokes that no one gets.
You think the big ra-ra push is crazy and you can't help saying so. The path
that you find obviously correct is the one everyone else finds silly.

I'm convinced that the real solution, to the extent it's possible, is for
highly intelligent people to find their way into positions that don't require
social acceptance. Academics is obviously one destination (one log-jam,
rather) for these types. But by all means avoid management, because that's
where the attractiveness of your brilliance to employers and the
unacceptability of your brilliance to your reports become a trap.

~~~
Consultant32452
I think it's important to recognize that not all innate abilities are created
equally. Innate intelligence will make you a social pariah but innate ability
in a physical skill that results in you being an amazing basketball player
will make you Michael Jordan.

------
thothamon
I appreciate the author's intentions, but I think the best outcomes happen
when you hire brilliant men (and women) and manage them well.

In the case of the sales executive, it sounds like the author allowed his team
to basically say "good luck doing this yourself, don't expect help from us."
And he allowed the guy to move into an ivory tower far away from where things
were happening.

If you decide you're moving in a certain direction, you need to make clear to
the team, if necessary, that digging in their heels is not a response you're
going to tolerate. Some people will probably have to move on.

I'm not surprised the article is anonymous. The owner sounds like a problem to
me, as much as the "brilliant" sales executive. He's good at making a mediocre
business, and his comfort zone is there. Trying to shake that up is a losing
game for anyone, brilliant or otherwise.

------
exarch
Very dated perceptions. We know now, for example, that those who stammer and
struggle for words often simply possess brains that are more full of
information, rather than possessing less efficient or organized ones.

In a knowledge economy built on creativity, I'll take Different Thinkers over
Cogs of Constancy any day.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Yeah, but you probably want a mix for your team.

------
DickingAround
He bends the meaning of words like 'brilliant' a bit and clearly lives in a
time where there are no such thing as protected classes (e.g. medical) but
there's a lot of value in remembering that most people develop wealth by
managing risk, knowing our limits, and finishing what we start.

~~~
dasil003
Given that it's 90 years old I suspect there's some connotation at play here.

------
deadfall
"But if you blunder for words, punctuate incorrectly, spell incorrectly, and
express yourself clumsily, I'm sure to believe you mind is cluttered and ill-
disciplined."

My mind is cluttered and I rely on spelling correction. Hard to say if I would
get the position.

~~~
badman_ting
Ah yes, the school of thought that supposes the ability to distinguish between
"your" and "you're" is the essence of intelligence.

~~~
pdonis
That's not what the author is saying. He's saying that if you are either
unable or unwilling to correctly use "your" and "you're", you are probably
unable or unwilling to pay attention to the details that matter to success in
his business. I agree that there's a fine line between proper attention to
detail and nitpicking, but taking the author's statement in context I don't
think he's on the wrong side of it.

~~~
badman_ting
It makes sense, but that's the danger of it in my opinion.

If you think this way, it's worth going back and examining the writings of
people you admired. You might be surprised! Or not.

~~~
pdonis
It depends on why I admired the people. If I admired them for their success in
business, then yes, I would expect their writing to show attention to details
like spelling. But if I admired them for something else, I wouldn't
necessarily expect that. I'm certainly not saying that anyone who is worth
admiring has to spell correctly.

------
deletes
What if John Carmack is an average programmer, and the rest of us are just
lazy in comparison.

~~~
snorkel
Carmack is actually a hard worker and writes code. Too often in the tech
industry you bump into people who are "architects" and "strategists" and not
hands on at all, or what this article may refer to as a "genius".

------
zem
that was fascinating. reminded me a bit of the protagonist in grossmith's
"diary of a nobody", but without the petulant self-absorption masquerading as
modesty. the author has genuinely sat down and thought long and deeply about
who he is, what his strengths and limitations are, and how he can best work
with other people, and he's a great writer to boot.

------
Stronico
Such a shame there is no author listed for that - it would be interesting to
hear what happened to him in life.

------
jqm
The modern business world is full of people like the author.

People who are asleep. People who are not actually alive. People who are
threatened by those who think.

These people hate the thinker, but their dreary little lives rest directly on
the foundation that the thinkers provide. For example, the radical who first
looked at fire and thought, "hey, maybe I could use that".... now THAT GUY was
a visionary who puts Musk to shame.

Really this type of people are just machines. And they will be the ones
machines are easily able to replace.

~~~
jqm
That being said... his business advice on who to hire is probably very apt.

A predictable machine is more useful to you than an unpredictable human.

------
ypodeswa
I think there's decent advice here for CERTAIN TYPES OF BUSINESSES. But this
is not universal good advice for all businesses.

The business in question, in this story, is a grocery store. It's a business
with lots of competition and little innovation, where you're selling
exclusively to customers who live very close to you. Furthermore, the
fictional business owner isn't interested in taking the risks needed to build
a massive chain, he's looking to grow slowly and make small, steady profits.
For this business, there's no need for brilliance or big risks, you just need
hard workers who are going to execute decently day in, day out.

A tech startup (the interest of most people on HN) is pretty much the complete
opposite situation. You need brilliant programmers to build an excellent
product. If you're B2C, you need those excellent salespeople who are going to
dream big and go after massive deals. If you're B2B, you need great growth
hackers/biz dev/marketers who can creatively get your product in front of
massive numbers of people for minimal cost. When you're trying to grow from
nothing to ginormous in 3-5 years, you simply can't do it with the slow
grinding approach, the only way is with risk and brilliance. That doesn't mean
there won't be grinding, repetitive tasks along the way, there will be TONNES,
and you need people who will execute on them (not the pure "idea guys" with
zero ability to execute, who I agree are of little use), but you also need to
be dreaming big and taking big risks. Always going after small wins just
doesn't work for tech startups, you need to regularly go after the big wins.

------
robertoparada
"But the point I have in mind is this: Business and life are built upon
successful mediocrity; and victory comes to companies, not through the
employment of brilliant men, but through knowing how to get the most out of
ordinary folks."

At a high level, I believe that's the essence of the story (whether is real or
made-up).

Today, in a globalized world economy with saturated markets, we are lured into
thinking that "the great next thing" will be a product of "brilliance". I
think this is a good reminder that it's not. That in fact, on average,
sustainable success is a product of a life's work and dedication to a purpose.
That in fact, the Jobs, the Zuckerbergs and the Gates of the world are merely
outliers and that we should look beyond the expectation of immediate and
flamboyant returns.

------
carboncreek
> You have lived twenty-five or thirty years without making a profit on your
> life; how can I expect that you will be a profit-maker for me?

Well, imagine that I have all your noble qualities, but I just couldn't get
the $20,000 that was paid out to you in your sophomore year.

------
channikhabra
> But if you blunder for words, punctuate incorrectly, spell incorrectly, and
> express yourself clumsily, I'm sure to believe you mind is cluttered and
> ill-disciplined.

I write and speak pretty well, but am still ill-disciplined as anything.

> You conceive a big idea, get the whole organization on tiptoes to carry it
> out, and then you lose interest and go off on a new tangent.

Now that's me.

> You are always living, in imagination, about six jumps ahead.

Now that's definitely me.

> Their active minds can always see two sides to every question; and they
> stand still while the debate goes on inside.

Now that's definitely me.

> Does he finish what he starts? Geniuses almost never do.

Good news, I am a genius.

Moral: In an ideal world I will never get hired or get success in business.
Hell I am doomed for sure.

------
megablast
> My experience is that it pays to buy the best; and what applies to things
> applies equally to men.

This is true, but price is a poor indicator of how good something is. You need
to understand the product or man, before you can judge which is the best.

------
yetanotherphd
Jealousy is a natural human emotion. It is notable how many stories bashing
smart people (not for being smart per se, of course, but for lacking other
important qualities) come up on HN. That, and how unfair the interview process
is.

------
iamwil
"That criticism may be justifiable, for I am mediocre. But the point I have in
mind is this: Business and life are built upon successful mediocrity; and
victory comes to companies, not through the employment of brilliant men, but
through knowing how to get the most out of ordinary folks."

The point of the article. Is this still true? I imagine you do need
exceptional people to be able to hit the high notes (10x programmers and all
that jazz).

Or am I interpreting this wrong, since the way he's using the word "brilliant"
is a bit sarcastic, or at least archaic?

------
heyadayo
Most striking to me is how impossible such a direct conversation would be in
this day and age. In a similar situation the manager would be pretty worried
about HR/litigation possibilities.

------
graycat
Two points:

First, the OP claimed

"Does he finish what he starts? Geniuses almost never do."

but gave no evidence.

Second, on _finishing_ , we can consider I. Newton, W. Mozart, C. Darwin
('Origin of the Species'), R. Wagner (operas, especially 'The Ring'), J.
Maxwell (E&M), A. Einstein (general relativity), J. Oppenheimer (A-bomb), S.
Ulam (H-bomb), J. Salk (polio vaccine), D. Henderson (Smallpox eradication),
J. Heifetz (violin), W. Gates (Microsoft), A. Wiles (Fermat's last theorem),
J. Bezos (Amazon).

------
ilbe
These two are good points:

1\. "There are just two grades of commodities in the world: the best -- and
the others."

2\. "...whether he can talk and write effectively... If you write and speak
neatly and accurately, it is because your thinking is orderly; if your
expression is forceful, the thought back of it must be forceful. But if you
blunder for words, punctuate incorrectly, spell incorrectly, and express
yourself clumsily, I'm sure to believe you mind is cluttered and ill-
disciplined."

------
yomritoyj
This story is a cheap attempt to make people with an inferiority complex feel
good. There is nothing great about mediocrity. Someone who fails to deliver on
their work is not brilliant, appearances to the contrary. But at the top of
the world are brilliant people who have delivered, and no amount of self-
congratulation for stolid mediocrity can change that.

------
Shorel
Nowadays these same people would be the characters of a 'Why I never hire
Marketing people to run a Tech company' article.

------
skyshine
The problem with the shoe buying story is that a lot of crap is sold as 'the
best' and it can be very hard to tell the truth. Shoes are a great example. I
used to buy Brasher walking shoes. They were great, but then they sold out and
the shoes are now an inferior quality whilst the marketing is the same and the
price if anything has gone up.

------
jfischoff
I like this article.

Something to remember, is you can never finish more things then you start by
definition.

I would not like to hire someone who always finished everything regardless of
how mistaken they were when they started.

We will we all finish fewer things then we start. By itself it't not that
useful of a metric.

------
JohnDoe365
> victory comes to companies, not through the employment of brilliant men, but
> through knowing how to get the most out of ordinary folks.

Definitely my favourite stance. Does that mean Go will succeed, while Rust
want? In absolute terms of money, not outstanding iceberg projects??

------
infinity0
I've seen plenty of stupidly expensive shoes that are only expensive to trick
people out of their money, not because they last for a long time. You need a
way to judge other than "try it out for x years until it fails".

------
izzydata
It doesn't seem fair to generalize everyone who is supposedly amazing at what
they do as being poor workers. Seems like circumstantial evidence that might
almost never be the case. Who really knows based on 1 person.

~~~
pdonis
There's more than one example given in the article of a "brilliant" person who
failed as a businessman. The author's opinion appears to be a considered one,
based on multiple experiences, not a snap judgment based on one unfortunate
episode.

------
deedubaya
Every time I see this, I enjoy reading it. It is a good reminder.

------
calinet6
Beware of following ancient advice—or you may get ancient practices.

"God Almighty, in fashioning his most useful men, often works slowly with
quite common stuff. Now and then He turns out a quick job of superfine
materials -- a genius who really delivers the goods. But most of His better
grade line is ordinary in everything except the extra effort, and dogged
determination, which have given it a finer texture and finish."

This tells me of a belief in the innate quality of man, of some who are simply
born better than others. Surely only half the story. We know better today.

~~~
darkmighty
But I think the arguments are sound and clear-cut nonetheless. I believe the
inadequacy of the argument to modern employment rests rather on importance of
the set of skills that he willingly neglected: a more significant portion of
jobs those days are very intensive on creativity and reliant on risky behavior
associated with the former.

With a sound internal structure this risk can be controlled and isolated
within organizations to get good results -- e.g. spawning research labs,
creating "distributed labs" like Google, etc.

------
cia_plant
From the magazine of things that totally happened

------
namelezz
Don't know if this is true story or not. I think the author is trying to cover
his incompetence as a hiring manager.

------
cafard
I should say that this is interesting chiefly as an example of magazine
writing of its time.

------
glaurent
Anybody else thinks that the 'Adams' character is the typical bipolar ?

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
Such good writing somewhat undermines the author's argument about genius.

------
rainmaking
This is mostly a testament to chose an industry you are suited for.

------
gwern
I wonder if OP's firm collapsed in the Great Depression.

------
piyush_soni
Well, I'm available then ;).

------
UK-AL
Highly dependent on the job.

------
jey
tl;dr?

~~~
zem
seriously? it's an excellent piece of writing and not all that long; just go
read it.

~~~
deedubaya
If they're looking for the short way out, I don't know if they'll get any
value out of actually reading it.

------
corresation
_" The letters you brought spoke in the highest terms of your sales genius.
The only question which they did not answer to my satisfaction was why
companies which had valued you so highly should ever have allowed you to get
away!"_

This is a truth that holds today (in the form of things like LinkedIn
Recommendations): Outside of exceptional circumstances, people seldom talk up
the people they need the most, but they will talk up the people they wouldn't
mind losing.

------
michaelochurch
One of the things I find irksome about the business world (and this won't seem
relevant to the OP till I explain it) is that, while it places a premium on
"finishing" and "delivery" (by the way, if you use "deliver" intransitively I
will punch you in the face) it also makes it really rare that one can finish
_anything_. It claims to have a culture of "shipping" but employs these people
called "executives" whose function is usually to get in the way of people
trying to do so.

The disorganization of his "brilliant men" (which is a conflation of two types
of people already-- the charismatic and the creative) seems to be something
the corporate world (at least in 2014 technology) creates.

The "brilliant" just fall hardest, I'd argue, because highly creative people
(one subtype he describes) tend to be most sensitive to context, and highly
charismatic people (the other subtype) can usually assume the failure patterns
of the highly creative.

The not-finishing culture, I think, is a product of the incoherency of the
corporate world. It's not uncommon to see people pass years in Corporate
America without achieving anything for reasons not their fault: shifting
priorities, projects cancelled for stupid political reasons, "re-orgs",
unclear direction.

At some point, people learn that Corporate Life is survived not by finishing
(in fact, that can be harmful, because now you have support responsibilities)
but being able to come up with a story when things outside your control stop
you from finishing. The muddling effects of subordination compound this
decline of executive function. It's rather sad, to tell the truth. I wish it
weren't that way.

I don't think it's just "brilliant men" who fail, in this way, amid the
jarring incoherency of most business. I think they just crash first and
hardest. The rest tend to drift downward over time and underperform silently.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Yes, michaelochurch, you are correct that the shifting priorities of the work
place often make finishing anything hard.

But there is another way, and that is to work in secret, and fit this secret
work into natural breaks in your normal work. For example, part of my job is
running a suite of reports on a monthly basis. Every time I run these reports
I do a little work to make them easier/quicker to run next time. Over the
space of a year this kind of work can really pay off, and frees up more time
to do more satisfying work, but the key is to improve in secret, it's rarely
appreciated at the time.

------
notastartup
While I was reading this almost 100 year old article, I felt nervous and
anxious because the writer actually [uncanny pictureI fear that I have never
been able to finish any of my projects, I get to about 80% and I am completely
burnt out and now I know why after reading this article. It doesn't take
brilliance or hacker thinking to complete a project. Quite the opposite,
resilience, boring and being consistent is what it takes to finish the
remaining 20%. This I see as something I need to work on. I always thought
that my quick thinking would get me far and it does give me speed and agility
in thinking but my mistake was thinking this mentality needs to be for the
entire project.

It makes sense now, marketing, sales, good software practices, these all take
discipline, endurance and the need to apply yourself every single day. It's
definitely not a sprint and I've built myself to sprint long distances and
burning out at the last remaining mile.

If the wisdom is a 100 years old and it still strikes a chord with our modern
business environment, it must be important.

Great read, I read the whole thing.

------
venomsnake
Some people slack of laziness. Some of boredom. A brilliant guy needs a lot of
infrastructure and support to not steer of course.

It is much easier for me to do 80 hour workload in 40 hours than 20 hour
workload in the same 40. Probably I am not the only one. If I have even ounce
of non challenging time at work I am always searching for the next great
feature/framework/whatever. And shipping slips. I finally managed to find my
stride but a few projects ... lets say they were hard on everyone.

------
marcfawzi
Why I never Hire Mediocre Men ™

------
hoboerectus
He who lives on hope dies farting.

