
Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation - oska
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/15/think_different_shut_up_and_work_harder_says_linus_torvalds/
======
tylercubell
Chris Anderson: So you spoke to me last week about these two guys. Who are
they and how do you relate to them?

Linus Torvalds: Well, so this is kind of cliché in technology, the whole Tesla
versus Edison, where Tesla is seen as the visionary scientist and crazy idea
man. And people love Tesla. I mean, there are people who name their companies
after him.

The other person there is Edison, who is actually often vilified for being
kind of pedestrian and is — I mean, his most famous quote is, "Genius is one
percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." And I'm in the Edison camp,
even if people don't always like him. Because if you actually compare the two,
Tesla has kind of this mind grab these days, but who actually changed the
world? Edison may not have been a nice person, he did a lot of things — he was
maybe not so intellectual, not so visionary. But I think I'm more of an Edison
than a Tesla.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/linus_torvalds_the_mind_behind_linu...](http://www.ted.com/talks/linus_torvalds_the_mind_behind_linux/transcript?language=en)

~~~
popee
Tesla worked for Edison and was a person who could finish things and some of
them changed the world. He was _also_ person with vision, so I think Linus is
either wrong or he is trying to put emphasis only on hard work. What if you
have person like Tesla with both qualities?

~~~
tylercubell
I agree -- you need a little bit of both qualities. The vision of what to
create and the execution to carry it out. The two go hand in hand. I think
Linus is putting the emphasis on hard work because we mere mortals aren't
endowed with the same genius that Tesla had and for us, the best way to
achieve something great is through hard work instead of "divine" inspiration.

~~~
nickpsecurity
The Chinese made a whole industry out of executing without visionaries. It's
called cloning products of visionaries. Or slightly improving them based on
marketing feedback.

~~~
coldtea
> _The Chinese made a whole industry out of executing without visionaries. It
> 's called cloning products of visionaries._

That's how the US got its start too. In the 19th century still, most
inventions were from Europe (England, France, Germany, etc), from the steam
engine to the refridgerator, and from the radio to the internal combustion
engine, cinema and photography. All European inventions.

~~~
rchaud
And the Japanese post-WW2. Toyota was considered to be the poor man's Ford
until at least the 1970s. Samsung and LG were mocked as artless copiers of
Sony/Panasonic/Pioneer products as recently as the 90s.

------
mwfunk
I think we're all reading lots of different things into what Linus said here.
My interpretation is that he's just saying that we tend to overvalue ideas and
undervalue the less glamorous work involved in bringing those ideas to
fruition.

The Tesla vs. Edison narrative is always couched in terms of the idea guy vs.
the more pragmatic (perhaps more business-oriented) guy, not unlike the
popular Woz vs. Jobs narrative, or the Jobs vs. Gates narrative in the '80s.
These are popular narratives and archetypes that reflect the people involved,
but can lead people to mythologizing history rather than understanding it.

In a different field, Lennon vs. McCartney.

So, among my peers at least, conventional wisdom is that Tesla was 100% an
amazing visionary and got screwed over by unfair forces of history, and Edison
was the villain whose contributions are overrated by historians. There's some
truth there, but more than anything else it's a historical narrative where
people are slotting Tesla and Edison into archetypes.

When a lot of people talk about Tesla vs. Edison, they're really just talking
about those archetypes, and revealing to what degree they value inspiration
vs. perspiration. I _think_ that's all Linus is doing here, saying that in his
mind perspiration is undervalued and inspiration is overvalued among his
peers. I don't think he's really trying to make a historical argument, which
is what a lot of the commenters here are assuming.

~~~
smarpidity
I agree with your interpretation, "he's just saying that we tend to overvalue
ideas and undervalue the less glamorous work involved in bringing those ideas
to fruition."

I would also add, Torvalds is an enchanted unicorn from a resume perspective,
it's not like he has followed a typical FOSS career trajectory, so seriously,
_what does he know_ \--> that you can put to use? It's like a beautiful young
woman telling you how you can get just a warning instead of a speeding ticket
next time, _just do what she does_ (except if you follow Linus's lead you will
definitely get the speeding ticket)

Humans have a built in instinct to follow great leaders, but if you are not a
great leader yourself, emulating them might not actually work for you.

I have tremendous respect for Linus and for the HN community; I'm just saying,
let's use critical thinking. There are plenty of successful super lightweight
coding projects; he works on kernel level OS for a huge legacy of hardwares;
he already was first to market, you still need to be, it's always tradeoffs.
Borrowing/paraphrasing an idea from finance or population genetics, _maybe the
world is the way it is because that 's the right mix_, why believe you know a
better way to a greater extent than your already believing so is already part
of the right mix?

so, I'm not saying don't think, reflect and improve, I'm saying don't throw
yourself into these debates all on one side. One size doesn't fit all.

~~~
mianos
Then he wrote git and hit the doubt out of the ball field. This may be an
anomaly, but he is behind one of the most successful large projects in the
history of software engineering. It's an insult to say 'enchanted unicorn'. It
makes this sound like luck. That is exactly what he is saying is bullshit.The
difference between some great lightweight projects and the Linux kernel is not
linear. There are almost no other projects that are as complex.

------
frederikvs
It's funny how he says "Don't do this big 'think different'... screw that",
apparently without realising that Apple did exactly what he's talking about.
Almost all of Apple's big innovations were stolen from other places, and then
they shut up, and got to work : making it work properly, making it user
friendly, making it sexy, and then selling it.

Apple's slogan may have been "think different", and they have the image of
being radical innovators, but hardly any of their innovations actually
originated with them. Apple is 99% perspiration and 1% stealing good ideas :-)

There's even an infographic : [http://mashable.com/2012/10/27/apple-stolen-
ideas/#Fs4Q5gSS....](http://mashable.com/2012/10/27/apple-stolen-
ideas/#Fs4Q5gSS.ZqF)

~~~
hawski
For me the word "steal" in "Good artists copy, great artists steal" quote
always meant: make it that good that the public will think it was always
yours. The origin does not matter, because reality for people is what they
believe in. If you will execute it better than anyone else it will be
considered "yours".

Edit: At the same time there are also few options to make people believe it's
yours beside exceptional execution, but that's not what the quote is about.

~~~
gukov
I like this. Build it so well the customers won't suspect a thing and will
think you're the original creator. In a way, this is "fake it 'till you make
it... the best version ever."

Apple is going to steal all the thunder again, this time in AR/VR, isn't it.

~~~
digi_owl
Hard to say. I can't shake the feel that that the consumer electronics Apple
that we have come to know this last decade or so came down to them making
products for one man, Steve Jobs. The iPod was basically tuned for his ears
for one thing. If he didn't want to use it, never mind be seen using it, it
didn't make it to the stores.

------
bananarepdev
I deeply respect and admire Torvalds, but in the corporate world, the
hypey/trendy thing helps tech people getting important changes approved by
upper management, at least in my experience. I work in a tech company whose
culture is primarily driven to productivity (read: getting business features
delivered using the established stack and tools, as quick as possible). There
is certainly an upside to it, but it produced a mindset in wich, in the face
of a new problem, developers didn't even think of the possibility of bringing
another tool to the toolbox. I mean seriously, to the extent of building their
own xml parsers. Only recently we have been able to assemble an architecture
team (i know, i hate the concept) to actually find adequate solutions to the
bigger issues, and the hype is sometimes a powerful enabler to push things
forward.

~~~
waynecolvin
Traditionally big corporations, or anybody with legacy systems, are very
conservative with technology choices...

~~~
laichzeit0
It's a good thing. Imagine if they built something with Angular Material
Design or Material Design Lite, for example.

------
soneca
The strong words of the title are not the relevant or interesting part of the
article (presumably of the talk also). The success in managing the network of
kernel collaborators seems to be the real story here.

 _" It's a social project," said Torvalds. "It's about technology and the
technology is what makes people able to agree on issues, because ... there's
usually a fairly clear right and wrong."_

EDIT: Just for context, HN thankfully edited the title. When I wrote this the
post was using the article's title: "Talk of tech innovation is bullsh*t. Shut
up and get the work done – says Linus Torvalds"

~~~
oska
I preferred the original title. But I agree that the main point of the article
is Linus' efforts in mastering (collaborative) process.

------
whsheet
I like the header and experimented with current trends:

\- Talk of AI is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done.

\- Talk of Machine Learning is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done.

\- Talk of VR is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done.

\- Talk of Smart Contracts is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done.

\- Talk of IoT is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done.

Not sure if I entirely agree with him but there's some truth.

~~~
avip
Blockchain is missing.

~~~
daemin
I assumed that Smart Contracts are built on top of the Blockchain.

------
altitudinous
Upvote 1000x - I'm sick of hearing people who've done nothing and "thought
leaders" ranting on. I'm pleased I put my head down, did work and did
something that worked for me that I can encourage others with and give
evidence. I wish those who have done nothing would go away - and stop filling
my inbox, and targeted advertising spots, and meetups with their crap. I wish
I could help others see over the shouting and point to what does work instead
of seeing them fall for the hype every time.

~~~
zhte415
'Thought leadership' is about being honest about what's happening and
expressing this. Giving a voice to SMEs about what they're doing, why they're
doing it, and where they think this will go; it is ideal Agile, constituting
the combination of thoughts from technology, leadership and subject matter
expertise. A credible message which parts on their own cannot communicate.
Some organisations do this very well.

When it goes wrong is when it becomes sales led.

> I wish I could help others see over the shouting and point to what does work
> instead of seeing them fall for the hype every time.

That's the point of thought leadership vs sales. What you complain of is
people using the term under the guise of sales.

~~~
aaron-lebo
_' Thought leadership' is about being honest about what's happening and
expressing this. Giving a voice to SMEs about what they're doing, why they're
doing it, and where they think this will go; it is ideal Agile, constituting
the combination of thoughts from technology, leadership and subject matter
expertise. A credible message which parts on their own cannot communicate.
Some organisations do this very well._

I don't want to be a dick but you've summed up what's wrong with 'thought
leadership'. If thought leadership consists of a bunch of buzzwords that
everyone else is using, you aren't a leader, you are a follower.

It's a business in and of itself; there's no correlation between 'thought
leadership' and success. Of course the traveling preacher would want you to
think there is.

~~~
zhte415
You're not being a dick, I completely concur. HN itself is an example of what
thought leadership can be, but would hate to be labeled with the tainted brush
the term has come to stain.

------
anjc
Someone who should be a multi billionaire says to ignore marketing and sales
and just work.

Edit: I'm not saying that he WANTS to be a multi billionaire, but the fact is
that he has attained disproportionately less value than he's created. By
rights he should be one of the wealthiest people in tech. He might have 150m
but that's peanuts given what he's done. The wealth of the guy who made
Instagram dwarfs that. The guy who made Whatsapp has a net worth of 8b.

Creation might be 90% perspiration as he says, but perspiration doesn't equal
success, and success doesn't equal a career. Obviously everything isn't about
money, and Torvald's legacy will be timeless. But if you want to ensure
earnings, at some point it's a good idea to sell.

~~~
VeejayRampay
You somehow make it unclear whether or not Linus not being a multi-billionaire
is a good or a bad thing.

Are you saying that because he didn't try to monetize his code as much as he
could have, it somehow makes his opinion less valuable?

The man created Linux AND git, it doesn't matter whether or not he's got
billions. He's got something more important than that, a legacy.

~~~
wingerlang
> He's got something more important than that, a legacy.

Why is that important?

~~~
VeejayRampay
In my opinion, a legacy like that of Linus means that he's produced a piece of
software that has positively impacted the lives of people.

It's important because he's actually delivered on the famous SV con-artist
promise of "making the world a better place".

Not directly, as in curing diseases or revolutionizing energy production or
consumption, but in ways that help people in developing countries access
information due to falling costs of computers (Linux) and phones (Linux
through Android) and people in business can thrive because of the diversity it
brings to the table (versus the Microsoft quasi-monopoly we had before).

That's what I put under the umbrella term "legacy", something that has, in a
way and ever so slightly, changed the world for the better.

Then again, we might say "it's just software", but in a software-centric
world, I reckon it does matter.

~~~
anjc
Positively impacting lives is surely important.

That's besides the point. My point is that working without selling is not a
viable strategy for 99% of people. Hell it barely worked for him in terms of
earnings, and he's one of the most impactful people in tech history.

~~~
VeejayRampay
It's not besides THE point, it's besides YOUR point, big difference.

Suppose that what matters is to monetize your work. Then by that metric, Linus
is immensely successful (personal worth of over 100 million dollars, which
likely puts him in the high brackets).

Now suppose (like I do) that the metric that actually matters is sharing the
result of your work so that others will build upon that and end up creating
even greater things. Well, by that other metric, Linus is still a HUGE winner.

So we're basically both right (unless of course we're ready to discuss obvious
falsehoods such as "Having 100 million dollars means it barely worked for
you").

------
aiNohY6g
> Torvalds said he subscribes to the view that successful projects are 99 per
> cent perspiration, and one per cent innovation

Certainly true. IMHO, innovation is about orientation, while perspiration is
about walking. They live in different timescales: GTD takes time while
innovation is a spark. However, both are equally important: it would be
useless to go forward in a wrong direction, it would be useless to identify a
meaningful direction without going forward, and it would be of course useless
to walk backward.

An acceptable - and subjective ! - balance is hard to find, these days.

------
theprotocol
It takes all kinds. I say this seriously and without intent to offend: it's
good to have a grouchy curmudgeon in the industry to keep us grounded.

~~~
richmarr
Thank goodness for that one specific grouchy curmudgeon, otherwise there would
be no grouchy curmudgeons and we'd all live like Eloi and waste the days away
braiding each others hair :)

------
davexunit
Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4%
evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.

~~~
LordKano
"That's 105%!" \- Mrs. Teevee

------
gbrown_
The OpenBSD folk have a similar (and surprisingly polite) motto of "Put up or
hack up" which I've always been fond of.

------
chiefalchemist
In the context of consumers, no one wakes up and thinks, "I gotta buy me some
innovation today." NO. ONE. People just want their problems solved. _That_ is
the target. Sure, innovation might be part of the means, but innovation is not
an ends (as it's often framed to be).

p.s. As a side-snark...Enough already about all these various dev
technologies. So they enable still-shitty user experiences? So what. No one
says, "Oh. I love they use _____."

Users. Don't. Care.

So please, for the love of God & country, stop stroking yourself with your
shiny new (dev technology) object. No one cares. The technology is a means.
The experience is the ends. Stop focusing on the wrong problem. Please?

------
throw2016
This is a social political problem especially with 'exceptionalism'. People
adapt to the environment they are in, that's one thing human beings are good
at.

In the US there is intense pressure right from school to colleges to work to
be 'exceptional', and to be recognized and celebrated for it.

There is nothing necessarily wrong, excellence is worth pursuing and to have
individuals believe they can achieve it. But there is a huge difference
between motivation by passion and interest and motivation by social
recognition and celebration.

There are pitfalls and side effects in a society from a toxic focus on
'winners' and 'losers', constant judgement, politics and one upmanship, the
ability of people to work together without the need for self congratulation
and diminishing the collective. It takes a village and all.

Excellence always comes through, you don't need to do anything special,
individuals who are brilliant will always shine in a self evident way without
labels or self congratulation via their work, throughout history and now and
in the future.

But you can't progress alone, progress comes from a generational interlinked
collective, and there is huge risk of diminishing the collective and brushing
every other factor under the carpet by an extreme focus on individuals.

------
simo7
This is one of those statements that end up being understood in slightly (but
significant) different ways based on one's own experience.

------
mrlyc
Good grief, not that again. One of Edison's contemporaries said that Edison
would have found a working lightbulb faster if he had put more thought into
his investigations.

What works for me is a series of plan -> do -> review sequences with about 10
to 15% planning, 80 to 85% doing and 5 to 10% reviewing.

------
happy-go-lucky
> "All that hype is not where the real work is," said Torvalds. "The real work
> is in the details."

That's where the real work is, in the details. I respect those who walk the
talk and he's one among them.

------
jest7325
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. - Thomas
Edison

It's not so original and it sounds like it was copied/pasted from an old quote
100 years ago

~~~
pythonaut_16
Linus literally talks about Edison and that quote in the article

------
AceyMan
wrt the rewritten HN headline, I've begun to prefer a different quip also
attributed to Edison—

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work."

+1 for that take on innovation.

------
arc_of_descent
I would look at it as the Zeno's arrow paradox. 99% perspiration could be
again broken down into 1% inspiration/innovation, and 99% perspiration, and so
on...

We need innovation simply because its fun.

------
hacker_9
Is it just me, or is this a predictable answer from someone who works
exclusively on an operating system? There is no innovation needed in his job,
everything has already been made by MS, Apple etc, he just has to take
existing ideas and fit them into Linux. Or even write the code that glues
pieces together.

Now ask someone in the VR/AR department. Everyday they have to think up is new
'innovative' ideas because they are on the bleeding edge. We know innovation
is needed because so far not everything is working.

What about Neural Nets, where there have been a lot of innovations to get from
one one 'neuron' to what we now call deep learning. And the list goes on.

~~~
devonkim
Invention and innovation are two different things that get conflated together
frequently, but innovation doesn't necessarily mean you have to come up with
something from scratch, but it does mean that you'll have to improve
something. Maybe it's more like all (successful) inventors are innovators and
some innovators are successful inventors. Sometimes it is the execution of the
invention that was done wrong rather than the concept itself - there's
absolutely value to society there. People get PhDs for finding commonalities
across different disciplines and uniting them under common terms. Hence,
because of the massive surface area of what constitutes innovation compared to
invention, business people and others with more visibility are typically
"innovators."

------
Animats
Of course he says that. His project was a clone of something that already
existed, Unix.

------
jondubois
It's 99% luck, 0.99% perspiration and 0.01% innovation.

------
bingeboy
Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory. – K. Pattabhi Jois

------
bingeboy
Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory. K. Pattabhi Jois

------
waynecolvin
Trust is earned, Linus is right.

------
singaraja
can 99% perspiration be automated with 1% innovation?

------
douche
Hear hear! Linus really is the patron saint of grumpy, cynical engineers.
There's nothing more frustrating than listening to the bullshit artist spin
castles made out of air, knowing that you're the poor son-of-a-gun that's
going to have to do the hard work to make it actually happen, and get blamed
when reality intrudes on the grand vision.

Also closes with a great quote. Code is easy, it's either right or it's wrong.
People are the sticky wicket

> It's almost boring how well our process works," Torvalds said. "All the
> really stressful times for me have been about process. They haven't been
> about code. When code doesn't work, that can actually be exciting ...
> Process problems are a pain in the ass. You never, ever want to have process
> problems ... That's when people start getting really angry at each other.

~~~
DigitalJack
"Also closes with a great quote. Code is easy, it's either right or it's
wrong. People are the sticky wicket"

When I read that I got the feeling that people were thinking to themselves "it
either executes or has an error," but that is certainly not the case when
Linus deems code right or wrong. Obviously not executing is an automatic
disqualification.

Two patches can correctly execute and achieve the same goal, and yet one will
be deemed "brain dead" and "moronic" and the other be deemed "right," solely
on the subjective whims of Linus. Totally his prerogative, and I have no issue
with it.

But don't think for a minute that code is "black and white."

------
Gibbon1
Ja cause if you tried 2% innovation you'd need 198% perspiration to go with
it.

~~~
wackro
Wisdom

------
thomasmarriott
Fuck yea.

------
zomg
linus troll status = epic

